President Putin tests the new Lada
09-03-10, 10:52 AM
#1
President Putin tests the new Lada
So, the former Russian president (he is currently the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation) went on a 2000 kilometer journey around Russia to test the new Lada "Kalina".
He was behind the wheel of a yellow Lada, escorted by a squadron of SUVs, buses, ambulances, etc. Of course to keep the disguise and protect Mr Putin from a potential attack, they had several yellow Ladas in the squadron - this way nobody knows which one is being driven by him.
How did it go?
Check out the video for yourself. Don't mind the language, but watch the video TO THE END! It's worth it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7T1b...layer_embedded
09-03-10, 03:31 PM
#4
Guys, I translated one owner's overlook at his Kalina. I'm posting it here, so that those of us who live in the USA, can realize how lucky we are to live here, and appreciate our awesome cars, great warranties, good service, and how far auto manufacturers and dealers are willing to go to keep us satisfied. So the next time someone wants to go ape $#!+ over a little problem, or blow a recall out of proportion, or whine and moan how terrible their Lexus is compared to another make (or vice versa) - read this, and you'll see how lucky we actually are.
In april of 2010 I became an owner of a new Lada Kalina Sport 1.6. The car was purchased from an official Autovaz dealership, and the price was $11,969.00. I liked the design of the car, comfortable seats, ac/heater system, rear disk brakes, and other features. I bought the car in good faith and was expecting to receive decent quality for the price paid.
When I started using the car, I enjoyed the excellent quick and responsive electric power steering. However, soon after the car started to to have problems. The first problem - AC indicator light stopped working after 70km (approx 35 miles). As you can see in the picture below, AC indicator light doesn't work, but the rear defrost indicator works just fine. The dealer said that all Kalinas have this problem, and they can't do anything about it. Not a major problem, but still a nuisance.
Shortly after I started getting steering wheel shakes at 100mph and up. I went to check the balance of the tires, and this is what the tire shop has discovered. The lug bolt for the rim was cross-threaded from factory. I went to the dealer, and they honored the warranty and fixed it at no charge.
Next I started having problems with the horn. It would work intermittently. I had to visit three Lada dealerships to correct this problem. The first dealer adjusted something inside the steering wheel assembly, the horn started to work, but not for long. The second dealer replaced the whole horn assembly, but that still didn't work. Finally the third dealer replaced a part inside the steering wheel, and the problem was finally resolved. Meanwhile, the new part took over a month to arrive and all this time I was driving with no horn. It is not very safe in city traffic.
Next, the rear windshield wiper stopped working. Turned out that the mounting nut got loose. What if a nut gets loose in a more critical component?
Then the windshield washer stopped working. The dealer honored the warranty and fixed it free of charge.
The factory wipers are very ineffective.
The next problem turned out to be a lot more major and cost me a significant monetary loss. Also it really showed how much Autovaz and their dealer cares about their clients.
When the mileage on the car reached 8,000 km (roughly 4,000 miles) the third and fourth gears stopped working. At that time I was in another city, and so I went to the Autovaz dealership there. They did a repair, but once I arrived back home, the problem persisted. I went to the dealership and they found a factory defect in the transmission. But they denied warranty repair because the transmission had been previously opened by the other dealership. Calling and sending letters to Autovaz headquarters provided no result. The car stayed at the dealership for over a month.
I had to purchase and install a new transmission at my own cost. Furthermore, none of the dealership had the transmission for the Kalina Sport, and the factory couldn't provide a leadtime. I ended up getting a transmission for standard Kalina, which is very noisy and hard to shift.
So far these are all the problems for a four month old car.
Now for the overview. Lets look under the hood at the engine. You can already see an oil leak. The dealer just shrugs it off and says all Kalina's do that.
The bumper has been separating from the day one. The gaps are awful. Dealership can't do anything about either - this is just how the car is constructed.
Window moldings are coming off. One one side it seems that its not even fastened at all. When I inquired about this at the dealership, they just smirked at me.
The pedals have nice rubber inserts so that your foot doesn't slip. However when pressing on any of the pedals, they make horrible squeaking noise and feel like they are about to fall apart. What if the brake or gas pedal falls apart while driving?
The car is equipped with an audio prep. There are no factory speakers or antenna - you have to purchase and install the on your own. All you get are wires and speaker holes that fit only some 5" speakers. I had to buy aftermarket inserts to be able to install decent speakers.
The cigarette lighter is very tricky. It works with some of the phone charges, but many chargers cause it to blow the fuse.
Another concern is the location of wiring for the heated front seats. These rear passengers can accidentally trip and damage these wires with their feet.
On the inside the finish is very poor, everything squeaks and rattles, padding is sticking out from the rear seat upholstery, shifter handle is vibrating pretty badly. But these concerns are easily solved by turning up the radio volume.
Now considering that an import car in Russia will cost you twice as much as it costs here in the USA (base LS460 for instance starts at $132K with loaded LS600h topping $198K), and that the Russian government protects domestic auto manufacturers by charging owners ridiculous "import tax", most people can't afford anything but to drive these Lada crapbuckets.
Originally Posted by Nucon
In april of 2010 I became an owner of a new Lada Kalina Sport 1.6. The car was purchased from an official Autovaz dealership, and the price was $11,969.00. I liked the design of the car, comfortable seats, ac/heater system, rear disk brakes, and other features. I bought the car in good faith and was expecting to receive decent quality for the price paid.
When I started using the car, I enjoyed the excellent quick and responsive electric power steering. However, soon after the car started to to have problems. The first problem - AC indicator light stopped working after 70km (approx 35 miles). As you can see in the picture below, AC indicator light doesn't work, but the rear defrost indicator works just fine. The dealer said that all Kalinas have this problem, and they can't do anything about it. Not a major problem, but still a nuisance.
Shortly after I started getting steering wheel shakes at 100mph and up. I went to check the balance of the tires, and this is what the tire shop has discovered. The lug bolt for the rim was cross-threaded from factory. I went to the dealer, and they honored the warranty and fixed it at no charge.
Next I started having problems with the horn. It would work intermittently. I had to visit three Lada dealerships to correct this problem. The first dealer adjusted something inside the steering wheel assembly, the horn started to work, but not for long. The second dealer replaced the whole horn assembly, but that still didn't work. Finally the third dealer replaced a part inside the steering wheel, and the problem was finally resolved. Meanwhile, the new part took over a month to arrive and all this time I was driving with no horn. It is not very safe in city traffic.
Next, the rear windshield wiper stopped working. Turned out that the mounting nut got loose. What if a nut gets loose in a more critical component?
Then the windshield washer stopped working. The dealer honored the warranty and fixed it free of charge.
The factory wipers are very ineffective.
The next problem turned out to be a lot more major and cost me a significant monetary loss. Also it really showed how much Autovaz and their dealer cares about their clients.
When the mileage on the car reached 8,000 km (roughly 4,000 miles) the third and fourth gears stopped working. At that time I was in another city, and so I went to the Autovaz dealership there. They did a repair, but once I arrived back home, the problem persisted. I went to the dealership and they found a factory defect in the transmission. But they denied warranty repair because the transmission had been previously opened by the other dealership. Calling and sending letters to Autovaz headquarters provided no result. The car stayed at the dealership for over a month.
I had to purchase and install a new transmission at my own cost. Furthermore, none of the dealership had the transmission for the Kalina Sport, and the factory couldn't provide a leadtime. I ended up getting a transmission for standard Kalina, which is very noisy and hard to shift.
So far these are all the problems for a four month old car.
Now for the overview. Lets look under the hood at the engine. You can already see an oil leak. The dealer just shrugs it off and says all Kalina's do that.
The bumper has been separating from the day one. The gaps are awful. Dealership can't do anything about either - this is just how the car is constructed.
Window moldings are coming off. One one side it seems that its not even fastened at all. When I inquired about this at the dealership, they just smirked at me.
The pedals have nice rubber inserts so that your foot doesn't slip. However when pressing on any of the pedals, they make horrible squeaking noise and feel like they are about to fall apart. What if the brake or gas pedal falls apart while driving?
The car is equipped with an audio prep. There are no factory speakers or antenna - you have to purchase and install the on your own. All you get are wires and speaker holes that fit only some 5" speakers. I had to buy aftermarket inserts to be able to install decent speakers.
The cigarette lighter is very tricky. It works with some of the phone charges, but many chargers cause it to blow the fuse.
Another concern is the location of wiring for the heated front seats. These rear passengers can accidentally trip and damage these wires with their feet.
On the inside the finish is very poor, everything squeaks and rattles, padding is sticking out from the rear seat upholstery, shifter handle is vibrating pretty badly. But these concerns are easily solved by turning up the radio volume.
Last edited by Och; 09-03-10 at 03:38 PM.
09-04-10, 08:56 AM
#7
They have special names for these cars in Russia "Metal bucket" or "Bucket of bolts". The problem is, in the Soviet Union a car was primarily used to get from point A to point B. The government did not want to invest in cars at all. You could not even buy a black car at that time, because all the black cars were used by the KGB. Having a car was considered to be a "luxury". However, the car itself was far from it.... 16 years after the colapse of the Soviet Union the government slowly started to support the domestic auto industry. And it will probably take another 10 years until they'd start making something decent.
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09-04-10, 10:20 AM
#8
Lexus Fanatic
From what we know about Putin, he doesn't seem to be as much of a car-enthusiast as his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin was (at least, on those uncommon occasions when Yeltsin wasn't either drinking or drunk). Yeltsin, of course, came to power at a good time...when the old Soviet Union collapsed and trade/communication with the West vastly increased, especially with far better cars from Western Europe, than what was being produced in Russia at that time. Putin, though, is not exactly a non-car-guy...........he appreciates a nice set of wheels, too, though I'm not sure that a Lada is a good-example of that.
09-04-10, 10:26 AM
#9
From what we know about Putin, he doesn't seem to be as much of a car-enthusiast as his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin was (at least, on those uncommon occasions when Yeltsin wasn't either drinking or drunk). Yeltsin, of course, came to power at a good time...when the old Soviet Union collapsed and trade/communication with the West vastly increased, especially with far better cars from Western Europe, than what was being produced in Russia at that time. Putin, though, is not exactly a non-car-guy...........he appreciates a nice set of wheels, too, though I'm not sure that a Lada is a good-example of that.
09-05-10, 11:15 AM
#11
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Of course he does, that's why his (and Medvedev's) state limo was custom-made by Mercedes and not by some barely-surviving domestic manufacturer (all of which can only produce a "buckets of bolts" or an extremely low-quality copies of a very old foreign car designs/platforms) 
That, of course, makes his "theatrical act" with Lada Kalina look even more pathetic (and hilarious) in the eyes of Russian population
That, of course, makes his "theatrical act" with Lada Kalina look even more pathetic (and hilarious) in the eyes of Russian population
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