Lada Granta Sedan – review after a year of use

Technical characteristics of Lada Granta Sport

Modifications of Lada Granta Sport

Lada Granta Sport 1.6 MT

Lada Granta Sport 1.6 MT 114 hp

Manual Transmission Background Information

The design of the Lada Granta manual transmission is nothing more than a modernized version of the manual transmission from the VAZ-2108. Until 2022, lever-type manual transmissions were installed. The new Lada Granta Sedan / Liftback (2018) is equipped with a cable gear shift mechanism.

Unlike the lever type, the cables are placed on top, which is convenient and practical when carrying out diagnostics and repairs. The shape of the clutch housing has also undergone changes and has become smaller in size. However, this did not affect the functionality of the manual transmission in any way.

Mechanics

Reviews from Lada Granta Sport owners

Lada Granta Sport, 2013

Arriving at the dealer, I saw the Lada Granta Sport, and honestly, I liked it. It has a nice body kit, full power accessories, touch-screen music, air conditioning, fog lights, and sound insulation. Inside there are good seats with lateral support, nice leatherette on the steering wheel, gearbox, and handbrake. Alloy wheels 16 inches. 120 hp engine, modified suspension, improved exhaust and basically that’s it. Lada Granta Sport cost 443 thousand rubles at the time of purchase. Minor drawbacks: the brake and gas pedals are very close to each other, the first couple of days there was a slight discomfort, then I got used to it. Shifting reverse gear - at the moment it shifts a little hard, but I think it will work out and everything will be fine. The pads are creaking - the dealer said that they will rub in and everything will disappear, if the creaking remains, then I will replace it at the first maintenance. Of course, if you drive in a vacuum - the windows are closed, the air conditioning and music are playing, you can’t hear anything, but it’s still annoying. On the plus side: I don’t seem to have an ear for music, but I like the music, it’s convenient to configure the central sound point on the screen, on which the sound is focused. It’s very playful compared to regular carts; I press the gas a little and it accelerates quite well. I remember the old “Kalina” - on the highway you press the pedal after 110, and it barely moves, but here at 5 revolutions the roar of the engine is almost inaudible compared to other VAZs, and it picks up speed well (so far I’ve tried up to 160 only on the highway). Handling, good steering wheel, very comfortable and pleasant, informative. I don’t know about others, but in Kalina, when I turned the steering wheel, I knew where the wheels were; in Priora, when I turned the steering wheel, I didn’t know this until I got used to it. Everything in the Lada Granta Sport is just as convenient as in the Kalina. Good interior finishing. VAZ never liked poor seats, especially the standard gray ones. There's good lateral support, firmer seats, and a fairly good riding position. Nice Loganov air ducts - they look nice, although I really don’t like the aluminum inserts; it would be better if they were just black or real aluminum, not Chinese plastic. Large trunk - in autumn and spring all wheels can easily fit when “changing shoes” or 5-6 bags of potatoes. Automatic running lights are a good thing, so you don’t have to turn the low beam “twist”. A nice body kit transforms the Lada Granta Sport and gives it, along with the wheels, a sportier look.

Appearance

After such an introduction, it’s easier to talk about appearance, because you don’t need to go into too much detail. No one expects any aesthetic excesses from a purely utilitarian product.

The first parking lot with new numbers near our house

It is difficult to imagine a resident of the European part of the country who does not know what a grant looks like. I think even the residents of Vladivostok are aware. So I'll just point out a couple of details.

The grille and holes for cooling the radiator in the front bumper are quite large, and the dealer immediately offers to install a mesh to protect against stones upon purchase and at every service. I haven’t decided to do it yet, but I’m planning.

It is also worth noting the side mirrors - they are huge and you can see everything perfectly in them. But I have a suspicion that if they are broken off, then at a speed of more than 100 km the fuel consumption will decrease significantly. They look very wrong from an aerodynamic point of view.

The most incomprehensible part for me is the non-closing gas cap. For decades, drunkards have been draining gasoline from Lada cars. Some car owners are mentally prepared for this, the other part is doing something collective farm in the form of locks. Yes, due to the structure of the gas tank neck, you can’t add much in the grant and you will need a thin hose. But damn, why not solve this problem completely? How long can you tolerate this? After all, attackers can pour in something non-flammable. Even in the news it is still the same story.

Waiting for numbers

Well, I can only once again complain that the design of the rear end of the sedans was unsuccessful. The curves in the trunk metal near the headlights are illogical and look rather alien. But these are minor things.

About crickets

On sections of the M5 that had not yet been repaired (Tolyatti - Syzran), there was a fear that “crickets” would take up residence in the car earlier than usual. No, the first creaks in the car panel manifested themselves in the Volgograd steppes, with their dull landscape and real crickets humming the melodies of Leonardo Cohen - they were very reminiscent of the North American prairies. The nasty “cricket” goes silent when you put your hand on the short-throw gearbox lever. What can you do, because a car is a single organism.

I remember the comment thread for the Lada Granta Sport news: news from the fields. One of the users tried to convince readers that it will start creaking after 100 km of driving - this is not true.

About the salon

Another concern is the front seats. I didn’t want to believe that on a long trip they would be as comfortable as they were on sharp bends and turns of varying sharpness. After all, when driving on the highway, lateral support is not as important as support for the legs and lower back.

During the trip, we can honestly and publicly say: the seats did not disappoint! There is much more comfort than on any of the models of the Tolyatti automobile industry. By the way, my wife, who had back pain when she traveled in VAZ cars, very highly appreciated the comfort of the sports seats of this car - her back does not hurt. But the interior does not consist of seats alone. Exclusive trim with red stitching, a leather steering wheel, handbrake handle and gearshift lever cover, all this is beautiful, but against the background of the usual Grant panel there is a feeling of incompleteness. Although, any incompleteness hints at further development and does not allow you to rest on your laurels.

The shelves and places for storing all sorts of things located on the panel are pleasing. Not happy with multimedia. Of course, it’s good that it exists, that it is touch-sensitive and has two slots for memory cards and four speakers located in the doors. The bad thing is that it works with some delay and has a small volume control knob.

The system plays audio files, photos and videos. Has a decent antenna and bluetooth to connect to your phone, which we weren't able to do. The same goes for video playback. It turns out (this is not stated in the user manual) you can only play videos in WMV format and 320/240 resolution.

Interior and ergonomics

The interior of the grant is also without frills. Simple, strong plastic that can squeak at certain temperatures. Sensitive people will have to tinker with this, but it doesn’t bother me, and I can’t hear it over the music.

Front row and all necessary devices in working position

The lack of height adjustment for the driver's seat combined with the lack of reach adjustment for the steering wheel could also be a problem. But I settled down quite normally. On long trips, your back gets tired at the same rate as on other cars.

The armrest on the door is not designed for my height. I can't put my hand on it without tilting my body. I wish it was taller.

I'm driving

The mirrors in our configuration are only mechanically adjustable. When parallel parking next to a high angular curb, this is inconvenient. In such situations, I lower the mirror so as not to bite the rubber and scratch the bumper. It was more convenient on the Rio with electrical adjustment.

Personally, I miss the heated steering wheel and seats. Because the engine may already be warmed up, but the cabin is still not very comfortable and the steering wheel is icy. But these are excesses that proletarians are not entitled to.

To show this more clearly, I made a short video. It shows in detail the on-board computer, which turned out to be very successful for a budget car.

Many of these problems could be solved by paying an additional 50,000 rubles for the luxury package. But when I bought it, I decided that it didn't make sense, so there's no point in complaining.

One of the advantages is the presence of air ducts to the rear row of seats. There weren’t any in the fawn and there were problems with the climate in the car.

I'm sitting in the front seat pushed as far forward as possible.

By the way, the air conditioner in the grant behaves specifically. At idle speed it may make a humming sound of medium volume. AvtoVAZ at one time said that this was the norm. But then they wrote on the forum that the owners changed something under warranty and the sound disappeared. I will follow this topic and the behavior of the air conditioner. If they write on the forum that everything is fine, then at the next maintenance I’ll also ask you to change it under warranty.

There is also a large and roomy trunk, but there’s nothing special to say about it.

Air conditioning and stuff

The air conditioning (but more on that later), light sensors, rain sensors and other pleasant little things caused absolutely no complaints. The air conditioning turns off automatically during acceleration, which cannot be ignored when overtaking heavy trucks and lines of passenger cars with families going to the sea. The rain sensor has three positions that regulate the frequency of movement of the brushes.

One of the unsatisfactory features is the poorly placed rear towing eye. It is located in such a niche that the bumper may be damaged when the vehicle is towed.

Wheels, steering, brakes and suspension

Suspension front/rear: independent, MacPherson/semi-independent. Feels tough. Sometimes very tough. What did they do to it to achieve better handling? The wheelbase has been extended. In total, the front and rear suspensions were widened by 20 mm. The figure is small, but coupled with the added degree of inclination of the rear wheels and the reduced ground clearance (up to 140 mm) it turned out to be very effective. Plus different springs, reduced ground clearance and changed shock absorber characteristics.

We were lucky, we managed to grab a Lada Granta Sport on size sixteen forged slick wheels. Nowadays cars are equipped with cast ones, which are also good, but made in China. Yokohama C-drive tires. The tires feel great during acceleration and emergency braking (near Saratov, someone in an SUV quickly drove off the adjacent road and stood rooted to the spot in the middle of the highway). But this is not only the merit of the rubber, the car is equipped with rear disc brakes with a diameter of 240 mm and an emergency braking assistance system, which could not help but help in this situation. The brake pads, apparently, were not the best installed - the wear of the brake disc was noticeable already at the second thousand. But rutting and wet road surfaces are what have a noticeably bad effect on the Yokohama C-drive’s road grip and handling. Noticeable noise appears at a speed of 120 km/h. I would like to add some good words about the steering. I don’t know what exactly they did there, but it allows you to control the car, and not set the direction.

Suspension

The main advantage of the Granta suspension is its high ground clearance and short overhangs. The front of the car is quite short and high - an empty car will have about 18 cm under the front bumper. If you install 15th wheels, then all 20. Some crossovers will have smaller numbers. The Granta has no skirts or unpainted elements under the bumpers. The rear is much higher than the front and it is almost impossible for it to catch on anything.

The butt is very high

During the entire period of operation, I never hit anything with the bottom. This is very noteworthy, since I had problems with this both in Rio and Pyzhik. When traveling to their parents' dacha, passengers had to get out of the car so that the car was higher. In a grant you can drive along a forest track and not worry.

We drove here 30 km along a forest path and normal

Both during summer trips along forest paths to the lakes, and during winter crossings of Surgob, the Granta behaved like a small all-terrain vehicle. One time I slightly overestimated the all-terrain capabilities of the car and drove into a pile of snow near the store, in which no one wanted to park (only a Land Cruiser was parked nearby). There was so much snow there that I almost sat on my belly. But there was ice under the snow and it was difficult for the spikes to catch on to it. But a couple of turns of the steering wheel and several fountains of snow from under the wheels pulled the grant out of ambush. Although I was already afraid that I would have to put Rituska behind the wheel and push the car myself.

On this trip we were looking for an unpopular access to Lake Ladoga

The suspension handles potholes normally. Doesn't rattle or knock. But if you drive on a road with small holes and cracks, then the suspension “doesn’t eat” them and you can feel them all. This is not an expensive foreign car.

It is also worth saying that due to the high suspension, the car has a high center of mass. Because of this, the car is prone to rocking. And many questions arise about controllability, which I will discuss below.

About dealers and service

The echo of unobtrusive domestic service came unexpectedly in the form of a phone call. The fact is that before leaving (the mileage was about 800 km) I stopped at the service station of one of the dealers. The reason was serious, in my opinion, the reason is traditional, the service was fast, professional, with an explanation of the reasons. Namely: noise appeared when the air conditioner was operating. Appeared chaotically - at startup, during operation, for a long or short time. Disappeared on its own, could disappear when turned on or off. The reason, as I was told at the service station, was the following: there was a lot of freon, not enough oil. The cause was eliminated, the freon and oil levels were equalized, and the noise disappeared.

A woman’s voice, which I listened to while lying on the sandy beach of the village of Dolzhanskaya, notified me that I had to pay for this repair, because I arrived not when the mileage was, for example, 200 km, but already 800 km. It turns out that the excess freon in the system is purely my fault. To pay or not to pay, that is the question.

But Progress Motors, where the car underwent its first maintenance, pleased me with a good attitude, a conversation from the general director and a cup of coffee. The workers who carried out the maintenance reported on what was done and expressed their own opinion about the car and its condition. The opinion was positive. The salon was literally recently repurposed. Previously, he sold TagAZ cars, and now, quite wisely, he began selling LADA. It was a little disappointing that even for an official dealer this car turned out to be a curiosity, and the information that the list of authorized dealers is quite limited is unknown.

Economical

Economy is my favorite section. It was precisely to save nerves and money that we took the grant. And the expectations were justified.

The presence of an average flow rate counter in the on-board computer warms my soul. Especially when it displays numbers around 6 liters per hundred. By modern European standards, these are not great figures, but for a budget car they are quite decent numbers. In city traffic jams it takes me a little less than 8 liters per hundred. 75 ponies in fawns in good weather ate so much along the track and were not shy. And it could have been worse. In Rio, the consumption was a little lower, but the engine capacity there is also smaller, so this is quite expected.

Average consumption when driving on the highway. We drove these 700 km on one tank

The presence of a robot has a good effect on efficiency. There are no losses due to the rotation of the fluid in the box as in classic torque converter automatic machines. The robot has a rigid engagement between the engine and transmission, and this has a positive effect on consumption. Also, the robot's standard firmware strives to switch to the highest permissible gear as quickly as possible in order to reduce consumption. Adherents of manual transmissions do not like this, since they are accustomed to not shifting up once again in order to start more vigorously. I've been using automatic machines all my life and it doesn't bother me.

About user interest

First, let's look at the advertising booklet, which contains the following lines: the owner of a Granta Sport can be sure that their car will be noticed. The rapid contour, low landing, graceful lines of the body - everything emphasizes the temperamental character of the car. As for the low landing, yes - Granta Sport has become lower. As for the fact that the car will not be left without attention - yes too! There was plenty of attention during the trip. People leaned out of the windows of passing cars, craning their necks as they passed by. There were some who were quite interested, asking questions and asking permission to look under the hood, sit in the cabin, and take pictures.

Several points were highlighted during the interviews. One of them, present in the form of a question (five or six times), does it have a leather interior? Hey designers and marketers, now you know about the people's aspirations. But regarding the external design, opinions are divided. The traffic cops found the silhouette similar to a Mitsubishi, and the watermelon seller - to a Subaru. True, he later added that Priora is better.

The rigid suspension was questioned, they say, in the city, and the conversation took place in Saratov, you will crush all your teeth with this suspension. Other technical features and design solutions (bumpers, spoiler) did not raise any complaints. The consensus when comparing the regular Granta and Granta Sport was the following: they made a beautiful swan out of an ugly duckling.

Now the car panel displays a figure of 5,000 km. What can you say based on your own feelings and expectations? But we can say the following: the car is good, it met good expectations and dispelled bad ones. By the way, the cricket has disappeared. But, as we know, miracles do not happen; we are accustomed to expecting bad things from the domestic automobile industry. Or maybe it’s in vain?

Controllability

The story about the Granta’s handling needs to start not with the rocking, but with the electric power steering. Technically, the amplifier works correctly and there are no complaints about it, but it does not give any feedback. It's like using a joystick to control a toy car. You need to get used to this.

Due to the high windage, high center of mass and high suspension, the car rolls and sways very easily. In combination with uninformative management, this gives an unpleasant effect. But up to speeds above 110 km/h these problems do not appear.

In this weather it's better to drive slowly

If you drive faster than a hundred kilometers per hour and add a strong wind with deep ruts on the road, then you have to drive the car with extreme concentration. Then with each next ten kilometers per hour everything only gets worse. The higher the speed, the more you feel the uncertainty of the car with your back; you have to hold the steering wheel firmly with both hands and constantly steer. In addition to this, side gusts of strong wind and air currents from oncoming heavy trucks strongly rock the car. And if this happens at high speed, it becomes scary.

As far as I remember, my maximum speed on the grant was about 150 km/h and I reached it in the summer while overtaking several trucks in a row. Gaining such speed is a small problem, it’s not a slow thing for you, but surviving at such a speed is already a task.

Don’t think that the Granta is always terribly controlled at high speeds. On a flat, untracked road in good, windless weather, it is quite possible to drive at high speeds. The main thing is not to make sudden maneuvers. But I believe that there is no point in riding a grant quickly. There is also no point in installing a more powerful engine in the grant - it would simply be suicide. Even with this engine, during hard acceleration the car needs to be caught a little so as not to leave the lane. And this is with a working suspension and a checked alignment/camber.

It’s better not to get into the mess in the center again

These problems are not unique to our car; on all Grant forums they write about problems with handling at speed. Some people are simply being very disingenuous when they say that they don’t exist. Or they've already done something to the suspension.

As far as I know, in the sport grant they lowered the suspension by 4 centimeters, made different camber angles for the rear wheels and a different beam. Well, they installed tires with a wider profile. All this (and possibly something else) solved some of the handling problems. But no matter how you are not a collective farmer, the car will not become more aerodynamic and not at all rolly. To solve these problems completely, you will have to spend a lot of money to assemble a fierce cramp in which there will be nothing left of the grant. So, it’s better for thrifty fans of driving a new car to just take the sport version and not worry about it. In any case, it will be faster than any other tuned basin with original VAZ engines. But news sport hasn’t come out yet =)

We also need to tell you something about the brakes. But I can just say that they are there and they slow down well enough that I don’t think about them. I'll limit myself to this.