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Comment by vasilipupkin | Hacker News Reader

It’s great to romanticize them, but this really was a low quality product that constantly broke down. Make no mistake, this was not a good product, even if it was cheap to repair.

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Actually problem was in a very bad quality control (same as with infamous Yugo later). So some were working fine, and some were delivered with screws missing and stuff like that. Overall, yes, it was not a good product - but when you get your lada and invest some time/money into fixing all the initial problems it would work and it was very hardy and able to work in tough conditions (winter, mud, bad roads, etc.). It was peoples' car, a product of a different era and different viewpoint. Very basic, not luxurious in any way, but affordable, and ultimately it would get you from point A to point B. If it didn't, parts were cheap and you didn't need any special skills or tools to fix it, so maintenance was fairly easy. My uncle owned one for around 20 years, and that car survived a lot more than any modern passenger car could take (among the other things you could put crazy amount of load in it without breaking the axle, he transported construction material in it like it was a truck).

Yugo was produced by Zastava (of Yugoslavia), not Lada.

I know, I'm from Yugoslavia originally. All Eastern Europe cars had the same problem, the lack of quality control, unmotivated workforce, and corruption which resulted in big oscillations in quality between the same models of cars...

Anecdote for sure, but we had a Niva on the farm I grew up on that basically lived it's whole life in a paddock, and even though the car needed to be roll-started when you wanted to use it (because the battery was the same vintage as the car) it was incredibly reliable.

The only repeat issue I've really seen with the old Nivas was rust as they allegedly spent months on snow-covered docks in Russia before being exported overseas, which ended up with them "coming with rust from the dealership".

I'm sure, however, that a professional day-to-day mechanic would have a different perspective on their reliability of course.

From what I heard Nivas that were exported from the Soviet Union went through more rigorious QA and were of a better quality than those released to the domestic market.

This was common practice in eastern block countries. They could not compete in western markets otherwise, even if the product was lower priced.

My only problem with the Niva is the fuel consumption, 19.6 mpg. Not something you'd want if you live in the EU. Otherwise it seems to be a quite reliable and repairable car. Also works with lower grade gasoline found in ex-soviet states.

Perhaps it's survivor bias, but every summer when I visit the in-laws in Ukraine I still see plenty of Ladas on the roads. And many rural roads in Ukraine are hideously bad with deep potholes.

My favourite Lada accessories are the rear spoiler for exceptional road holding and carpet on the dash for added luxury.

Probably depends on what year you’re looking at. The Lada Riva started its life as a fiat 124 in 1979 and stopped production in 2010 or so. Those are some very tired tools, and I can imagine that the tolerances got much looser with time.

Compared to other Eastern European cars the Lada was very solid IMHO. My dad went through a number of pre-owned cars, an old 'round' Wolga, Polski Fiat (very similar to the Lada, since it was also a licensed Fiat), an East German Wartburg, and the Lada was his favourite, the engine was basically indestructible). IFIR the only problem was that the bodywork was suspectible to rusting, but what's a few holes here and there if the car is just driving fine ;)

> to other Eastern European cars

In 1976, VW started to make Golfs here Yugoslavia, in Sarajevo. Compared to other Eastern European cars like Yugo or Lada, VW golfs were solid. I still see many old Golfs on the roads here in Montenegro, and very few Yugo’s.

Interesting, did they also sell the Golfs in Yugoslavia? I know that at one point, Eastern Germany imported a few VW Golf, Mazdas and Citroens, but AFAIK those were one-time deals, and nearly unobtainable for normal citizens (both because they were rare, and also very expensive, even the Lada was almost considered to be a luxury car in the GDR).

Yes they did. It was also possible to buy e.g. an imported Mercedes, if you could afford one.

Yugoslavia is Eastern Europe but was neither NATO nor Eastern Block. The country stayed neutral, and they traded with both sides of the iron curtain. E.g. Americans have built a nuclear plant, Russians sold some military tech for e.g. submarines…

I wonder if you preserved the design, had higher tolerance parts, and better QA during production, would you then have a competitive product?

No, because of bad passive safety in Ladas.

Sorry but.. wouldn't you then have a different product?

The body styling would be the only essential to be evaluated after.

I think the ones that went thru quality control were exported to the SEV* countries. The bad ones were sold on the domestic market.

*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comecon

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