Volkswagen Multivan test drive since 2003 minivan
Believe your eyes!
Volkswagenes of the conveyor/caravel/multivelane family habitually habitual to see in the role of trucks, transported vans, minibuses and even offices on wheels. However, in the all -wheel drive version of the Panmerica, this car can also be an all -terrain vehicle, which Yuri Nechetov was convinced of his own experience. Photo by the author. The weather turned out to be the most autumn: a gloomy sky, low clouds and tedious dampness in the air either dripping, or just hanging. They will be canceled how to give them to cancel. Or they will be reduced by driving in a children's sandbox ... Dull thoughts spun in his head while driving an expirence off-road pokatushki on a full-wheel drive Volkswagen-Multiveen. The track is laid along the clay hills, and now it’s just right to crawl on them on the tank!
We construct an all -around
In the hierarchy of Volkswagen-T5 modifications, multiveen occupies the upper line. In terms of comfort and equipment, it is in no way inferior to cars, and in some way even surpasses them. For example, the salon is much more spacious and multifunctional. Of course, like almost all Volkswagen, it has a full-wheel drive version of 4Motion (read fir-yoke) for confident driving on slippery roads. The transmission scheme is the same as most SUVs: on good coating, only the front wheels are leading, when they slip a huldex clutch, it connects the rear ones.
What needs to be done to increase the off -road abilities of Multiven 4Motion? At least to install an enhanced suspension for bad roads offered for the entire T5 family. Longer and rigid springs with increased energy intensity increase
road clearance from standard 167 to 197 mm. And if they already raised the car, then instead of serial tires 215/65R16, larger, for example, 235/70R16 or even 235/75R16, will fit into the wheel arches. And they will increase the clearance by another 24 or 28 mm, respectively. As a result, we already get a quite serious clearance of at least 220 mm! However, four toothy all -terrain wheels must also be crank up in the ground. In the absence of a handout with a decreased nearby, the necessary traction capabilities will provide a 6-speed box with a wide range of gear ratios and a 2.5-liter turbodiesel (in-line five) with a torque of 400 N.M. For blessed passage, add forced blocking of the rear inter -long differential. As for the strength of the carrier body, which takes on all the loads, it is worth remembering: Multiven and the worker of the conveyor (carrying capacity of up to 1400 kg) has almost the same design.
It turned out a all -resistant modification of the Multivaen Panmerica 4Motion, on which I go to the dancing clay (this is necessary, nothing was canceled and even did not simplify the cross route!). True, the price is somewhat confused: over 2 million rubles. For off-road, I would prefer something simpler.
PanAmerica near Moscow
Immediately behind the start, a huge puddle of some jelly do not forget to press the differential lock key and accelerate well before the steep, percent of forty, rise. You can only jump out, so the first gear and gas to the floor! The motor roars, the wheels are slipping, the car is chatting like soap in a bath, so you have to desperately turn the steering wheel to hold the trajectory. Somewhere above the judicial booth, but it hides behind the short-haired Multiven, striking in the sky. Would not be demolished inadvertently. Almost losing
speed, I transfer through a comb ... Damn, just in a booth! Somehow warming up with an obstacle and even falling into the control gate, I roll up to the descent, are they crazy? It’s scary to even go down from this cliff on all fours: either you lie on the belly at the very top, or burns your nose at the bottom of the Volkswagen almost five -meter length, barely struggling to the excess of aluminum protection of the bottom (who doubted that 220 mm clearance is not enough?), Rounded down with an increasing roar. . Here it is important not to press instinctively the brake pedal you risk turning around the slope and then go down already somersault
Nothing, crawled and even bumper below did not tear off. As it turned out, at first the rather modest indicators of geometric patency embarrassed me (the angles of the entry and exit 22o and 16o, respectively) belong to a fully loaded machine on ordinary rubber. And empty, but on large wheels
The next gate settled on the slope of a profiled turn. On slippery clay, you can only pass them sideways, putting the car diagonally. Then there are still descents, ascents, mud baths, more similar to swamps, to overcome them, feeling the capabilities of the car, is already easy.
At the end of the figure driving competition: a snake, a circle, a pocket, a snake in reverse, a garage. Sit higher, orient the outer mirrors down, go to the rear wheels! The exercises are simple, but the track is so tight and bizarre that you need to calculate the trajectory on a few figures forward, otherwise even a complete rotation of the steering wheel may not be enough ... nothing, we coped with Multivan, having not received a single penalty point here and securing ourselves the first place among representatives of automobile publications. Know ours! _X0008_ The design of the T5 family, like almost all passenger Volkswagenes, provided for the installation of all -wheel drive transmission. In the developed floor tunnel, in addition to the exhaust system, a cardan shaft can also be laid, and the back suspension allows you to painlessly place the shafts of the drives. A subframe with a gearbox is mounted on the bottom in a pre-provided place, fasteners for extinguishing vibrations are made on rubber silent blocks (the spare wheel in this machine is dismantled). The difference between the modification of the pan -dimensional longer reinforced springs, as evidenced by the slightly lowered levers of the front suspension (with conventional springs they are located horizontally).
Source: The magazine "Driving"
