CLUB OF CAR FANS
/ OWNER'S EYES
CHANGED THE “VOLGA” - AND I DO NOT SPARE
LAUNCHES WITH USED “SAMARA” JUSTIFIED MYSELF
TEXT / KONSTANTIN CUCUMBERS, SARATOV REGION
Once the Volga seemed to me the embodiment of reliability, durability, comfort and prestige. Therefore, in my notes * I claimed that I would remain a supporter of my favorite brand. But the circumstances were such that instead of the "Volga" in the garage appeared sparkling glossy cherry VAZ 2109 9 / "> VAZ 21099 one and a half years old.
The sizes were most unusual - the machine seemed almost toy. After several days of dating, I felt the difference. According to the “Volgovian” habit, before each trip I checked the level of oil, “Tosol” and other fluids, remembering firmly that if the oil does not drip from the engine, it means that it has already ended. But the oil did not drip and for some reason the liquids did not disappear anywhere. In motion, the car also pleased - stability and handling are incomparable with the Volga, quiet in the cabin - except for the creak of plastic, no extraneous noise, even the engine is almost inaudible. The cans of gasoline are enough for a whole trip, and not for a modest run, as before.
In a word, I didn’t miss the Volga for long, but I managed it with the noise of plastic. He took off the plastic upholstery of the ceiling: it painfully echoed she responded to all the bumps in the road. Under it, the bare iron of the roof was exposed - a real speaker system! He inserted pieces of foam between the plastic and the roof, pressing the upholstery. Then he dismantled the doors and, at the same time with anti-corrosion treatment, pasted them from the inside with the help of mastic with an old soldier’s blanket. In the trunk, I installed plastic upholstery, which was not there before. I pressed the rear shelf from the trunk side with brackets, bending them to the shelf, at the same time replaced the fasteners in its front part. After these simple improvements, it became much quieter, the plastic was almost silent.
Alas, under the circumstances, the car had to be sold while it was worth something. After some time, at a reasonable price, I bought a friend's car - also the "99th" with a mileage of 163 thousand km. True, she looked a little like a “three year old”, more like a taxi before going to a landfill. But the person who raised the Volga from the same, if not worse state, cannot be frightened by such things. So, for the job.
He began, as always, with the suspension. In search of a source of knocks, he examined the fastening of the rear beam to the body. It turned out that of the three pins of the left bracket, only one is intact, and that one is weakened, which is why the bracket fidgeted together with the beam, grinding the pins more than half the diameter! Just a little more … Having assessed the difficulty of replacing the studs (dismantling the suspension, cutting the floor), I just welded the bracket to the body. A similar story was with the front suspension.
Well, what’s in motion? The key to starting is silence! The battery, as they say, is dead. Inside is some kind of brown slurry. But judging by the release date, he is still not a year old. I put another battery, the engine starts - but where does the smell of electrolyte under the hood come from? Bah, he’s boiling like water in a samovar. What about the generator? I take it off and take it apart: everything inside is black, it smells of burning insulation, there are deep furrows on the slip rings. And here is the reason - the relay-regulator, which is not at all similar to the “Samara” one, seems to regulate nothing. In addition, the brushes are alien, a little more, and they would have completely "eaten" the collector.
Surprisingly, with such a run, the motor worked like a clock. Saved agility, minimal noise during operation, oil consumption is invisible. True, in the box, when the second gear abruptly turned on, a crack was heard that was familiar from the Volga.
I also had to repair the seats, in which not only the upholstery was crawling, but the foam was torn. The fabric in luxury (of course, by VAZ standards) performance of my car got so poor quality that when I tried to wash it began to crawl like paper. You can’t save like that! I had to darn the upholstery and cover it with covers for safety.
While the interior was drying up, I took up the exterior. Only the roof and one door had no defects. I bought a new front wing, instead of the dented one, I mastered the rest of the parts in a week. But with a metallic finish that I liked, I had to tinker with it, although I could paint with ordinary enamels.
All expenses are presented in the table. Total, together with the price of the car itself ($ 1, 600), it turned out about $ 1, 750.
For more than 10 thousand km I left without any problems, so the game was worth the candle. I am sure that many people, having suffered from the operation of the Volga or other machines, will only be happy when they transfer to the Samara, even if it has to be repaired first.