Snow is a rare occurrence in the south of Russia. Many car owners prefer not to change summer tires to winter ones at all. However, in most regions of our country, ice and snow cause a lot of inconvenience to drivers. “Yuzhny Avtomobil” went to Yekaterinburg, where on the ice of a frozen lake it was convinced of what the all-wheel drive Renault Arkana is capable of.
Someone will say that Arkana is weak for off-road, and its foppish appearance does not allow it to be considered a brutal SUV. If you also think so, then you are deeply mistaken. Renault Arkana is built on a modular SUV platform, and accordingly its closest relatives are the Kaptur and Duster SUVs, and therefore, in terms of suspension, Arkana is in many ways similar to its counterparts, so the cross-coupe also behaves well off-road. We were convinced of this last summer during the premiere test drive in the forests of the Leningrad Region, and now it’s time to test the Renault Arkana in Yekaterinburg in snow and ice.
Forest paths
Our winter test in Yekaterinburg lasted two days. On the first day, journalists were given the opportunity to drive the Arkana on public roads. There were not only asphalt roads, but also broken country roads. The organizers also prepared a real off-road section through the snowy Ural forests. The test featured cars in top-end configurations with a 1.3 TCE 150 turbo engine on all-wheel drive. The engine is paired with a variator from the Japanese company Jatco. The roads in the Urals are different, while driving on the federal highway you feel relaxed, but at some point our route goes towards a small village, and then into a snow-covered forest.
One of the Ural journalists joked that local residents usually use such paths to get to work in winter and there is nothing surprising about this. But he was clearly lying, at first the road had small potholes, packed snow, but then deep ditches, ruts and humps began.
The unevenness sprinkled with snow could lead to the fact that you could easily hit the bottom or even bury yourself in the snow. However, the ground clearance of 205 mm, short overhangs, and all-wheel drive made it easy to overcome the forest paths prepared by the organizers. The trip through the snow-covered forest was a real pleasure. At the same time, due to the wider wheelbase, the Arkana did not bounce on bumps, but rolled smoothly over snow-covered potholes. But this was just a warm-up – an excursion through the Ural forests, which Arkana conducted for us at the highest level. The real tests awaited us on the second day, during races on the ice of the Verkh-Isetsky pond.
Cuban ice
Ice tests for Renault Arkana took place on the winter ice of the Verkh-Isetsky pond, this place is called the “Cuba” autodrome by the locals. Every winter, Sverdlovsk racers organize drift races on ice here. But most of them have cars specially prepared for such events, while we have ordinary road Renault Arkana, albeit in the top configuration. This is where we will test the cars for endurance, and at the same time check whether the variator will overheat, which the average Russian car owner does not like and is afraid of. Several tracks in various configurations were prepared for ice tests, which the participants of the races took turns on. As was said earlier, the cars did not undergo any special preparation for ice races. They were only shod with studded tires Continental IceContact 2 SUV size 215/60 R17.
On several cars, Renault representatives specially disabled the stabilization system using a service computer so that journalists could compare how the car behaves with and without the electronic assistant. The stabilization system on the Renault Arkana can be completely disabled by the driver at speeds up to 50 km/h, but is reactivated upon reaching this threshold. On our cars, the stabilization system was forcibly disabled.
After several test runs with an instructor, having studied the track configuration, journalists were released in Renault Arkana for combat runs. Without electronic stabilization, the cross-coupe behaves like a four-wheel drive car, pulling the car out of a skid with the front axle. It is not possible to enter sideways effectively and quickly, the skids are smooth. The main thing here is to dose the gas correctly and then the car will dive into the turn itself. At the same time, the steering wheel movements must be smooth, if you over-tighten the steering wheel, the car will immediately skid onto the snow curb.
On the ice snake with the stabilization disabled, the car drives classically, like in a textbook. If you turn the steering wheel too much, you won’t be able to catch the third skid, so you had to choose the right speed and steering wheel angle.
As for driving a car with the ESP on, you can feel the mistakes you made on the same ice tracks. The electronics will do everything for you. In fact, with the stabilization system on, you can drive fast on ice, but there will be no spectacular skids. The electronics maintain the car’s trajectory by braking individual wheels and not reducing engine speed until the driver starts actively turning the steering wheel.
With the stabilization system on, you get the safest driving mode, and the car corrects all your mistakes that you could have made if the ESP was off. Finally, let’s talk about the CVT. One of the tests involved driving in a circle while skidding. The participant of the race had to make a full turn around the cones in a skid. And no matter how hard they tried to overheat the variator, they failed.
Of course, if you set a goal, you can do anything with the car, but it is unlikely that anyone will conduct such experiments in civilian conditions. In the conditions of everyday use of Renault Arkana in winter, the all-wheel drive mode and electronic assistants will be enough for any driver to drive safely. And if you need drift and extreme, then you better take up motorsport professionally, but in this case you need to ride a car prepared for these purposes.
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