04 October 2018 Lada.Online 9 899 3
The new Lada Granta FL family received not only a new appearance, but also an updated interior (dashboard from Lada Kalina, a new instrument panel, thoughtful, comfortable geometry of headrests, a new seat shape, height adjustment of the driver’s seat, etc.), as well as a modified line of engines and transmissions. The auto media decided to evaluate all this during test drives.
Kolesa.ru
About headlights
:
- The cut-off line of the new headlights is clear (although the factory headlight adjustment seemed imperfect), and the light is subjectively better than that of the “old” version.
About windshield wipers
:
- The windshield wiper trapezium is rather weak (as before), and the blades move with play relative to each other. The wiper still leaves a wide, uncleaned strip along the pillar.
About the seats
:
- The driver's seat has an unfriendly profile: it is convex both at the cushion and at the back, as a result of which, even with the seat lowered as far as possible, the seating position seems high, and the back puts pressure on the spine. The range of seat height adjustment is quite decent
- The driver's seat is a little loose.
In the cabin
:
- The new interior door handles are good: the hinge is designed for a more natural grip, and the internal profile makes it easy to grab onto.
- The glove compartment is small.
- The door pockets are narrow and do not have any stampings for bottles.
- The cup holders on the central tunnel are also small.
- Not all interior indicator lights are as good as the new instrument panel lighting, which is a subtle white color.
- The “improved ergonomics” of the lever handle is more marketing than tangible.
- The manual gearbox handle has become larger and more angular.
- The gap between the glove box lid and the front panel is smooth, but wide.
- The button on the automatic transmission lever still moves under your finger.
- The steering wheel is not installed symmetrically (on a straight line it is slightly turned to the side).
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About the engine
:
- Vibration at idle has not gone away. And if the car is equipped with an automatic transmission, then you literally feel the shift from “park” to “drive” with your back.
- The improvement in dynamics due to an increase in the gear ratio of the main pair from 3.7 to 3.9 can hardly be felt in practice, as well as a tiny increase in fuel consumption.
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About manual transmission
:
- An “untested” gearbox on a car with a mileage of 800 kilometers betrays itself with imperfect clarity of gear engagement: sometimes the lever “goes in” like clockwork, and sometimes with little effort.
- Changing the main gear from the point of view of noise and vibration load turned out to be purely homeopathic. The box still howls in second gear, and overall it’s not very quiet.
- The cable drive, of course, reduces vibrations on the lever to a minimum, but this minimum is still higher than that of most of its counterparts.
- The clutch is not the most informative; although it has a fairly light pedal, it has a rather sharp engagement moment.
About management
:
- The Granta's handling, according to engineers, has become a little better due to the reconfiguration of the shock absorbers and power steering. The only way to experience these settings in practice is through a thorough comparative test. However, the overall handling feel is positive.
- The only thing that raised some minor questions was the adjustment of the electric power steering: in the near-zero zone, the force is expectedly minimal, but when turning the steering wheel while driving, it gives an artificial impression of “feedback”, becoming more viscous.
About the suspension
:
- Excellent at swallowing holes.
- On high-speed sections of the road with a chipped surface, the car inevitably “buzzes” with a slight tremor.
Link to test drive.
Test drive Lada Granta: new hope for the motor city
In fact, the new Lada Granta is the “old” Lada Kalina plus 400 new parts. But it would be hard to call Grant just a restyling of the Kalina. The car has really changed and has actually become better than previous AvtoVAZ products. But it’s too early for Tolyatti residents to rest on their laurels. Kolesa.Ru found out why.
Surprises awaited us even before the test drive of the Lada Granta. After walking me to the car, the car dealership employee explained to me how to use the additional alarm key fob: “If you press this button and hold it a little, the engine will start!” Presses. Holds. Not .
The door was closed and the guard was armed and disarmed a couple more times. Not again. The manager was clearly alarmed, but kept his cool, and I actually believed his surprise at the unexpected overlay. The third time Granta started! To be convincing, we turned off the engine and repeated the procedure: the engine of the new Lada started without problems with one press of a button.
However, even if the trick with the key fob had failed, the complaints would not have been against AvtoVAZ, but against the installers of the additional equipment, because the alarm system with remote start is an option, and not a factory one.
Autoreview
We tested a Lada Granta liftback with an automatic transmission and a 98 hp engine for a test drive. (Luxe package for 610 thousand rubles) and the Lada Granta sedan with manual transmission and 106 hp engine. (Luxe package for 570 thousand rubles).
About headlights
:
- The new optics deserve an average rating. You can't drive faster than 80 km/h on the short-range, and the long-range is quite narrow.
About the engine
:
- A 106-horsepower engine paired with a manual transmission is noticeably faster at the start than an automatic transmission with a 98-hp engine.
About the transmission
:
- A 4-speed automatic transmission is better suited for the city; for the highway it is better to choose AMT (since it has 5 gears).
About the suspension
:
- The new gas-filled shock absorbers are too stiff. even on a flat road, the liftback trembles all the time, which cannot be said about the sedan (it has exactly the same suspension).
About management
:
- As soon as you drive more actively, the car “falls apart”, the responses to the steering wheel are very dull, there is no need to talk about pleasure here at all.
About the brakes
:
- It’s more pleasant to slow down in a sedan because the pedal on it is better tuned. In a car with an automatic transmission, you press, press on the pedal and nothing happens, and then sharp braking “like hitting a wall.”
About the salon
:
- The new seats are not bad, quite comfortable and not as soft as before.
- The interior door handles look like beer bottle openers; they used to be grab handles.
- The steering wheel is not installed symmetrically (on a straight line it is slightly turned to the side).
About sound insulation
:
- The sedan's noise insulation is better than that of the liftback.
Details in the video:
Adaptation and Tricks
About 17 million euros were spent on the entire project of adapting the automatic transmission to AvtoVAZ products - relatively little. But it could have been less. For example, under a contract with JATCO, the Volzhsky Automobile Plant undertook to invite representatives of the Austrian engineering company AVL as consultants to reconfigure the automatic transmission to the specifications of Grants. And the Austrians, thanks to their worldwide fame, ask far from modest sums for their services. It was possible to find specialists in Russia, but a contract, a contract...
By the way, AvtoVAZ rejected the original version of the settings proposed by foreigners - the car with them was very slow and “thoughtful.” As a result, we took the running ratings of the Nissan Note as a starting point and tuned the “automatic” with an eye to the behavior of the Japanese hatchback.
It must be said that the Tolyatti designers resorted to a little trick by pairing the JATCO automatic transmission not with the “eight-valve” engine installed in regular Grants, but with the “sixteen-valve” VAZ-21126. Thus, due to a slight increase in power (by 11 hp) and torque (by 5 Nm), it was possible to maintain the dynamic characteristics of the car at the level of a Granta with “mechanics”.
Auto view
Two updated Grants with a 106-horsepower engine under the hood were tested:
- with a robotic transmission (with new firmware, like Vesta);
- with a 5-speed manual transmission.
About AMT
:
- Sluggishness and inadequacy have sunk into oblivion. Gears shift clearly and without hard pokes, delays do not appear either in city traffic jams or on country roads.
About manual transmission
:
- The manual transmission surprised me in a good way. It works with the clarity of an automatic shutter and there has never been any confusion between “first” and “third”. Moreover, each transmission is quite “long”. For example, in “second” it is quite possible to accelerate the car to 80 km/h.
Link to test drive.
Lada Granta: first test of a production car
Renovation
On the way to Krasnaya Polyana - the starting point of the test - the bus monitors show a program video about the birth of Granta. The entire pathos of the video is briefly formulated by Lada Granta project director Oleg Grunenkov: “To create a worthy product, we saved on everything, while maintaining the high consumer qualities of the car.”
Tolyatti residents are proud that the start of development of Granta and the start of sales are separated by only two years - a record time for modern AVTOVAZ. Grunenkov lists the main achievements associated with the emergence of a new model built on the basis of Kalina. First of all, the supplier panel has been updated. Partners from Renault helped conduct an internal audit of Russian component manufacturers, after which some were abandoned in favor of foreign companies. 400 original components were developed specifically for the machine.
The base price of Granta - 229 thousand rubles - was not easy: they saved money by reducing the number of parts. Thus, the bumper, door trim, and dashboard are made from the minimum number of components possible today. And countless little antics: you can no longer find the usual gasoline consumption sensors, a temperature scale or a classic flow meter. “Why, for example, monitor how a car heats up? Just another reason for excitement,” explains Grunenkov with a smile. “Now these readings are displayed on the electronic display of the on-board computer.”
drom.ru
The test included only a sedan with a 106-horsepower engine and a 5-speed manual transmission and a liftback with a 4-speed automatic transmission.
About the engine
:
- On a 106-horsepower Grant, the VAZ-21127 engine spins well up to almost 6000 rpm. This engine with a manual transmission can easily outperform more expensive models in terms of dynamics (acceleration to 100 km in the 123-horsepower Hyundai Solaris is 10.3 seconds, in the Granta it is 10.5 seconds).
About steering
:
- The sluggish reactions to turning the steering wheel have not disappeared. The car reluctantly enters the curve, lazily follows the driver’s commands, rolls noticeably and takes impacts on the steering wheel when driving over uneven surfaces.
- While driving, the steering wheel, with the wheels in a straight position, looked five degrees to the left.
About the suspension
:
- The suspension of the Granta cannot be called comfortable. You can’t deny its elasticity and energy intensity, but it doesn’t know how to “delicately” handle all the little things on the road.
About the brakes
:
- There remains a characteristic drawback of all versions with an automatic transmission in the form of a stiff and uninformative brake pedal. In the first third of the pedal stroke, the deceleration is weak, and then the pads suddenly grab the discs. It’s hard to find this line if you’re not used to it; as a result, almost every braking ends in a dive.
About the exhaust system
:
- On the move, when accelerating from a standstill and adding traction, the vibration-loaded exhaust system “phonets” when it comes into contact with the heat shields.
About sound insulation
:
- Despite all the innovations, the Lada’s interior is still very “musical”: I closed the door - and immediately a booming echo echoed throughout the cabin, the key was inserted into the ignition with a metallic clang, from which the trim of the steering column casing resonated. The same echo occurs when the ringing steering wheel paddles are clicked, and the “clack” of relays responsible for various electrical equipment is a classic of the genre.
- The shudder from the powertrain is transmitted to the seat and controls, and you can hear everything that happens behind the engine shield.
About the seats
:
- People of average height and above will most likely complain that the seat itself in the lowest position is still set too high. At first I liked the new, denser padding and the slightly modified profile, but the more you drive, the more clearly you notice that due to the hard filler, the pecks, bumps and vibrations that the suspension, together with the power unit, transmit to the body are less absorbed. Lateral support is also lacking.
Disadvantages identified during the test drive on video:
Test drive link
ps the article will be updated as new tests and trials appear.
Let us remind you that we previously told you what differences there are in the trim levels of the new and old Lada Granta.
Keywords: Lada Granta engine | gearbox Lada Granta | restyling of Lada Granta | Soundproofing Lada Granta
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Lada Granta: saving without fanaticism. Test drive Lada Granta
This is the car everyone has been waiting for. And let someone not be going to buy it or even be sarcastic about VAZ’s new product, but, one way or another, everyone is wondering: what will a car worth 229 thousand rubles be like? Future bestseller provided by INTEY Autocenter. was studied in detail by Andrei Chepelev, a columnist for the autosite bibika.ru.
Appearance: practicality and zest
Exterior of Lada Granta . Probably, most readers managed to appreciate it a long time ago when the first spy and then official photographs appeared in the press and the Internet. All that remains is to confirm: the car does not look damaged at all . although it shows the desire of the creators to achieve maximum practicality. Both front and rear the car looks decent. I was especially pleased with the smooth lines running from the lights along the trunk lid. A great detail that adds design flair to an otherwise lackluster appearance.
“The deflectors are like on my Alfa Romeo,” I say to Oleg Grunenkov, director of the Lada Granta project. We are driving together in a new Tolyatti liftback. “Nothing surprising,” Grunenkov unexpectedly answers. Deflectors ordered by AvtoVAZ are produced by a company that also cooperates with the Fiat concern.
The foreignness in the new Granta does not end there. The interior also contains, for example, elements supplied from Japan. But the main trump card of the new product, according to the company’s top managers, is the design. “We drew inspiration from the Audi A7,” Grunenkov’s statement is striking in its absolute sincerity. AvtoVAZ tried very hard to make a beautiful car.
The company's president, Boo Anderson, who has a reputation as an ironclad manager, could not hide his excitement during a speech on the occasion of the launch of the new Granta into series. And at the plant in Izhevsk they prepared so carefully for the presentation that they did not have time to decide what to call the car: a liftback or a hatchback. The components boxes say “hatchback”, and the official posters say “liftback”.
Is there somewhere to put the phone?
Eat. Especially in cars with minimal configurations. Let's count: a box with a lid at the top of the instrument panel, a shelf for the tunnel lining under the center console, a shelf under the handbrake lever, a shelf in the glove compartment and a very convenient slot above the single-din audio center. Two large cup holders are available. There is a socket. But, unlike the pre-restyling Grant, it is powered only “by ignition”. For those who often go “autonomous”, I recommend replacing one of the plugs on the panel with a USB slot (there are plenty of them in online stores), powering it with a constant “plus”. You can easily charge your phone during long stays in nature.
Evenly
Here are the results of measuring the thickness of the factory paintwork at the points indicated in the diagram:
- Hood - 116 microns.
- Wing - 94 microns.
- Threshold/door - 93 microns.
- Trunk lid -96 microns.
The car is painted normally. Save within reason. The roughest guideline for the thickness of paintwork on most cars is from 80 to 160 microns. Grant's numbers are not at the very edge of the tolerance range. This is good. The variation in thickness on vertical body parts is minimal. The parameters of the Lada are more modest than those of the Renault Logan taken as a reference model. With the Datsun on-DO that was tested, with the exception of the hood (the Granta is a little “fatter” here), the difference is within the measurement error. It’s not surprising - they have the same platform, and they come off the same assembly line.
Is it comfortable to sit?
The front seats are a compromise. Relatively high rise, not very long cushion, but overall decent back support. However, after restyling, the chairs became more pleasing to the eye, but less pleasing to the back and legs. The old-style padding was a little more comfortable - on a long journey the desire to stretch did not come as often. And of course, restyling did not correct the main drawback of the rear of the Granta - the narrow space in the area of the lower part of the doorways. But this inconvenience of getting on/off is an inevitable price to pay for stamping the floor under a large fifty-liter tank.
