The Niva is rightfully considered the best domestic off-road car: driving in mud – there is plenty of video material available online – will give you the opportunity to finally be convinced of the car’s off-road properties. Initially, the Chevrolet Niva was positioned on the market as a worthy replacement for the legendary VAZ-2121. Indeed, the new car’s off-road performance is truly excellent: no worse than its predecessor.
Thanks to this feature, as well as due to its reliability, ease of operation and maintenance and, naturally, due to its low market price, the new Niva has gained overwhelming popularity. Let's take a closer look at the car's off-road potential, and also watch some video materials to confirm the facts below.
Extreme drive
By definition, this car cannot provide high speeds: the engine in it is rather weak, we have already mentioned aerodynamics. However, even at relatively low speeds, driving the Niva requires good reaction and nerves of steel: the gearbox knob regularly jams or stops falling into the right grooves, the car constantly skids, and steering becomes necessary even on dry roads on a summer day.
Instrument readings develop intuition well: what exactly the jumping arrows point to can only be guessed by a person who has driven at least a hundred thousand on the Niva.
Additional adrenaline is added by constantly fogging (freezing in winter) windows, which the entire population of the car is busy fighting. There is practically no sound insulation in the car: even when accelerating to 20 km/h, you get the impression that you are in a Boeing taking off.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the extreme inefficiency of the machine. Even on a good track with a smooth surface, the engine will consume the same 8-12 liters
, as in the city. And eight is if you regularly languish over your “horse”, and he is in good shape. The usual standard is about ten.
I took the new Lada Niva Travel and drove it off-road. I'll tell you what surprised me
The first copies of the Niva Travel reached Russian roads, off-road roads and other destinations. Once upon a time, the Niva was one of the few cars created from scratch by domestic designers specifically for local conditions and, I must say, it turned out to be a successful design. What do modern drivers think about the reincarnation of a veteran? We have collected reviews from real owners for you.
Nikolay, Moscow.
Comfort Off-road package.
Perhaps the most important advantage of the new Niva is a very moderate increase in price (5-20%) compared to the old Shevvy-Niva, while maintaining a relatively simple and familiar component part. But visually the car has clearly looked younger and looks in traffic or in a parking lot no worse than any foreign car of a similar class, and compared to the old one it looks even better.
The interior is frankly old-fashioned, inherited from the previous generation, but it is made well, nothing creaks, rattles or falls off anywhere. The seats are no frills, the range of adjustments is modest, but there is heating and I was able to adjust it to suit myself without any problems.
The back row is less comfortable, it is noticeably cramped there, and the trunk cannot be called spacious either. The “oars” (manual window lifter handles) on the rear doors took me right back to my childhood. But there is also a plus - no problems with the electric window lifters are guaranteed!
The engine is weak for the highway, overtaking will have to be calculated, but on dirt roads or rough terrain the new Niva will give most vehicles a head start. Where crossovers go 20-30 km/h, the Niva easily goes 60. However, you have to pay for everything; gasoline consumption (according to estimates, the on-board computer does not display this value) goes beyond 12 l/100 km.
You get used to the stiff pedals after foreign cars in a couple of days. The information content of the steering is low, on the highway this is a minus, but on the dirt road it’s a plus - you don’t have to frantically hold the steering wheel on bumps and potholes.
Also interesting: Niva generator transfer bracket drawing
The head optics are simple, halogen, but the light is quite acceptable. And the role of DRL is performed by a simple small incandescent light bulb mounted in the headlight reflector. Previously, this design was called integrated side lights, but now, without bothering with alterations, they have simply been renamed DRLs.
In general, the car is quite satisfactory. There are no frills in it, everything is functional and corresponds to the price.
Advantages:
- reasonable price;
- high cross-country ability;
- maintainability and availability of spare parts;
- familiar and understandable units;
- Sound insulation has noticeably improved.
Flaws:
- old weak engine (no matter how you modernize it, the design goes back to the 70s, hence the result);
- voracity;
- trunk is too small;
- there is no sound indicator of the engaged handbrake;
- For some reason, the Comfort package lacks an antenna;
- Quite a heavy hood.
Ruslan, Kemerovo.
Classic package.
I chose Niva Travel mainly because of the price. There are still no other new SUVs in the price range of up to a million rubles. Even a UAZ for this money will be two or three years old. But sellers sensed an opportunity and are starting to push additional equipment to the maximum. I was going to buy it in the cheapest configuration for 3/4 million, but it ended up being 100,000 more expensive.
Compared to the 2004 Chevrolet Niva, which I drove before, the car has become much better:
- gaps in body panels have decreased;
- increased sound insulation of the engine compartment;
- The car's roll has become noticeably better;
- The bridge breathers have been moved to the top.
The official dealer managed to surprise with the unique break-in conditions: the engine doesn’t seem to need it, but the oil in the axles needs to be changed after 2-3 thousand kilometers. This is strange.
So far I'm happy with the car. I'm a realist and I understand that I'm unlikely to find anything better for the money.
Arsen, Pyatigorsk.
Equipment Comfort.
The car was originally purchased for modification, so some points were not paid attention to.
There is nothing to say about the dynamics, Niva is like Niva. It drives, but it’s naive to expect anything more from this engine. But the seats were a pleasant surprise, they were not bad before, but now they are excellent, you sit down like a glove.
One day a friend called me to help him start his inherited Moskvich. After cleaning the carburetor and replacing the battery, the veteran started up and began to try it on the go. Paradoxically, the four people of different builds involved in this found a comfortable position behind the wheel in a matter of seconds, despite only one working longitudinal adjustment, although some of them had to suffer quite a bit with this moment on new foreign cars. Later, a doctor friend explained that the physique of people in different regions is at least slightly different. For example, residents of the post-Soviet space are, on average, more stooped compared to Europeans. Therefore, domestic seats, designed to suit the anthropometric parameters of the local population, are often better suited than imported ones and require less adjustment.
The standard wheels and tires are quite good, in most cases they are quite sufficient, but the plans were to replace them with wider ones. There were no problems with the tires, but I had to look for 17-inch wheels with suitable parameters. As a result of a long combing of the Internet, only one suitable model was found.
Also interesting: Renault Duster and Chevrolet Niva comparison of cross-country ability video
I encountered a similar problem when trying to reflash multimedia. The cat cried for information on Nivov’s “music” on the Internet. You have to figure it out yourself, using the “scientific poking” method.
But it’s for the better. A friend of mine, also on Niva, had a Pioneer radio installed by a third-party service that completely refused to work if the car was not going in reverse. The car stops or drives forward - the music is dead. You plug in the back one and everything comes to life and works as expected. The servicemen threw up their hands: “It’s Niva, God knows they screwed up at that AvtoVAZ.” But the mistake turned out to be in the radio settings; it was necessary to rearrange one regulator slider in service mode, but the staff did not know this and preferred to dismiss the problem. So it turns out that sometimes digging around and figuring out the issue yourself is cheaper and more effective.
Mikhail, Nefteyugansk.
Classic package.
The car was purchased for work, so the main thing is that it drives, but still some aspects are annoying. First, about the advantages, there are few of them:
- I liked the taillights;
- I liked the lighting of the instrument panel (but the panel itself became somehow like a toy, like a child’s).
There are many more disadvantages:
- After driving the old Shnivy, it’s impossible to get rid of the impression that the hood is about to open.
- The front hub bearings could be installed from the Niva 4x4, but they are Shnivo ones, adjustable. Now you will have to farm the collective farm yourself.
- Gasoline consumption does not drop below 10 l/100 km even on the highway. The old Shniva drives more vigorously and maintains a fuel consumption of 8l/100 km. But maybe he’ll get some more run-in and curb his appetite...
- The engine is missing.
- It would be possible to install a rack in the steering, and the front suspension as a whole could be modernized.
- The engine compartment space seems to have increased, but at the same time it has become more cramped and more inconvenient to work there. I was installing gas equipment, so in some places it was quite difficult to crawl up with the tool.
The design of the Niva Travel is far from a masterpiece of modern technology, although for many this is rather an advantage. But even those who criticize technical solutions admit that the Niva copes with its functions quite well.
Design and convenience
Niva 2121 Review. It's worth starting with its interior decoration and convenience for the driver and passengers. Over almost forty years of life on the assembly line, improvements were rarely made to the design.
The body of 21213 Niva is decorated with chrome inserts. The front windows have ventilation windows. The taillights are mounted horizontally. Later they will be replaced with vertical ones, in modified versions.
The tailgate ends inconveniently in the middle of the rear of the body, which does not allow convenient stowage of things, and also creates some problems when transporting long items. Only a bag with tools and spare parts will fit in the trunk of the car. Folding the rear seat does not make the situation much easier, although the trunk volume in this case doubles.
The instrument panel of 21213 Niva is simple and concise. It is very similar to the instrument panel from the VAZ-2106 car: the same round dials on separate blocks, rotating heater deflectors and the proprietary glove compartment lid that opens upward.
Tanks are not afraid of dirt
Test drive of the VAZ 2121 Niva in the city and on the highway leaves much to be desired. The car noticeably yaws from side to side, and when cornering, even at low speeds, the car tends to leave the trajectory, so you should hold the steering wheel tighter. The brake pedal is soft, and the braking distance is obscenely long.
The main advantages are shown in the test drive of the VAZ 21 on rough terrain and off-road.
When moving on rough terrain at speed, due to the rather short wheelbase, it is prone to longitudinal swing. Even the installed stiffer suspension does not reduce the galloping effect.
This model is equipped with main gear pairs with a large gear ratio, which, in accordance with the long gears of the four-speed gearbox, gives some advantages in cross-country ability in contrast to later versions and provides better traction characteristics. Therefore, you can overcome a muddy or steep climb under tension, without acceleration, simply by turning on a downshift in advance.
The native element of the three-door Niva is a very rough forest road. This is where the car turns out to be very good. It can pass through ditches and ditches without difficulty, either perpendicularly or diagonally. The suspension travel is quite large, but if diagonal suspension of the wheel occurs and loss of contact with the ground, then we block the differential in the transfer case and continue driving.
The approach and departure angles are quite decent, so climbing a steep hill or fording a stream will not be difficult.
The small geometric dimensions of the car allow you to easily maneuver between trees. Unfortunately, the hydraulic booster so necessary for such a car is missing.
Advantages of a short Niva compared to a VAZ-2131
So, let’s list the obvious advantages of the short-wheelbase Niva:
- permeability;
- maneuverability;
- dynamics;
- body rigidity;
- less consumption;
- less weight.
Appearance of the “old” and updated Niva
All these advantages stem from the short wheelbase and low weight of the LADA 4×4. Now let's look at the long Niva.
