Beschreibung
Welcome to the listing of my 2011 left hand drive Lada Niva, I am the second owner of it, and have owned it since May 2022. It has 60k miles on it with a fairly full service history and has an Mot until Feb 2025. It is in fairly tidy condition and has had a huge amount of money spent on it in my ownership. It still has a few issues as per the description below. It comes with a selection of used spare bits with it, plus the option for buyer first refusal on a couple of sets of additional wheels, some useful general green laning gear and some new parts accrued while I have had it. The Russians have been building them for nigh on 50 years and they are kind of Soviet original Land Rover Defender. They are pretty few and far between in the UK (circa 200 at a guess).
I bought it from the original owners, one of which was a British diplomat posted in Sweden for three years where they bought it new. It was snot green and they had the dealership spray it satin black. It was a personal import to the UK in 2015 (the paperwork of the import is in the documents) and has been here since. The previous owners spent money having a company called Prospeed build it a custom set of instruments so that it reads Mph on the speedo and I believe in miles on the odometer. They advised me that it had never really been used off road.
Generally the shell on it is pretty good from a rust perspective, but they are quite rot prone. I spent £1, 500 having the outer and middle sills completely renewed. I bought the car to use for local green laning so like most green laned off roaders the paint down the sides and over the roof is fairly cosmetically scuffed from pushing through undergrowth. Despite this the body is almost dent free, except a small dent at the top of the (UK) offside A pillar where I tried to go under a fallen tree. It still looks pretty presentable, but large parts of the bottom 30cm of the visible body and panels have been brush painted.
The main rust in it is confined to the door bottoms and the bootlid, which are fairly notorious Niva rot spots. While the shell was professionally welded the bolt on panels I have done lower quality repairs on, while I had been keeping an eye out for better panels.
The interior of the Niva is fairly tidy. The front seats are fairly unworn, though the drivers has a small nick about 15mm long in one of the backrest bolsters. The rear seat, rear seatbelts and parcel shelf come with it along with some used spares in the second to last picture.
I have spent something like £9k on it in the two years I have had it. Parts replaced include:
Heater control tap under dash
Heater blower fan in dash
Electronic speed pick up sensor on gearbox
Camshaft position sensor
Transfer case mounting rubbers both sides
Engine to transfer case rubber doughnut replaced with strengthened version
Rear propshaft UJ male and female
Handbrake cable adjuster bar, and full cable between the rear hubs
Hand brake full components in rear hub both sides
Rear brake shoes and aluminium rear drums
Nearside rear brake cylinder
Nearside rear driveshaft oil seal in axle (twice)
Front and rear coil springs
Rear dampers
Front nearside full drive shaft (twice)
Front offside driveshaft
Front lower spring cups and damper mounts
Front steering control arm on offside
Front swivel hub replacement kit with standard 'straight' wheel bearings
Numerous front ball joints
Front discs and pads
Full service kit (plugs, oil filter, air filter, fuel filter, HT leads) twice
Offside rear mudflap
Bootlid internal release handle
Seat plastic side trims (drivers twice)
Diff lock lever ball (in red)
The chrome inserts in the front and rear windscreen
It now drives probably better than at any time in my ownership but it still has various faults that need noting:
- The back axle / diff is VERY loud. The garage have recommended that it is looked at sooner rather than later or it may catastrophically fail damaging the axle casing with it. - The heater blower fan in not currently working despite fitting a recent new replacement
- The heater matrix drips occasonally on the transfer case centre console, and runs down the side into the footwells.
- The engine management light sometimes comes on.
- It has started dripping from the nearside rear halfshaft seal (it drips out the bottom of the brake hub). This could be done when the diff work is done as the halfshafts will need to come out.
The car comes with a ring binder thick with bills and service history from the previous owner and I. This includes the importation paperwork, loads of invoices, the first UK v5C (previous owners name) and my current v5C in my name. I think there are various Mot's in there, definitely the last one I did and the current one until 19th February 2025. There are also a handbook and service book (though unstamped), a printed out owners manual and a second ring binder with a workshop manual in English. I have two sets of keys for it. If you are looking at the advert then I am assuming you already know what a Niva is and hence I am not going to go into any detail about the models history etc, beyond saying that the Russians have been building them for nearly 50 years and they are kind of the Soviet equivalent of an original Land Rover Defender, with a similar level of cult following in their homeland and in parts of Eastern Europe.
I thought driving a Russian icon about might be quite divisive in Britain at the moment but people love it! You get talking to people at petrol stations in it and I’ve had people come in pubs to ask who owns the Niva in the car park! Seems to be on most car enthusiasts bucket list to own or try a Niva at some stage and generally seems to be considered cooler than a Penguins cold bits!
It is tidy enough to look respectable in daily use but scuffed enough that for green laning and off road use you don’t feel guilty about using it. Definitely got a few ‘Russian’isms’ about it and some of the interior plastics quality would shame a Kinder Egg! It most definitely is not a new Audi Q7. The heater in it gets proper 'Siberian Winter' toasty and it is a particular quirk of the Niva that the engine gets up to circa 90 degrees Celcius engine temperature literally in three or four minutes. You currently get the full Russian experience driving it as it is on it's steel wheels and Russian brand 2011 tyres with circa 8mm tread.
Their reputation for being excellent off road is also well justified, and I would say it holds it's own against things like original Land Rover Defenders. I am a member of Beds, Herts and Cambs Land Rover Club (BHCLRC - Recommended) and it has proven itself competitive in the occasional Tyro / RTV's that they have organised, especially on more aggressive tyres (two different grades of aggressive wheels / tyres available by separate negotiation). It has also been more than capable on the green lanes of Herts, Essex and Kent when I have been out with BHCLRC or GLASS Hertfordshire. If you did rebuild the back axle with the Torsen diff plug and play kit Ladapower sell then it would be more capable still!
I guess some people may be put off by the left hand drive but having previously had an LHD Fiat Barchetta then I felt straight at home in it, and you get used to it within the first couple of drives etc. Given the models propensity to rot and better parts availability for the more recent versions then I'd choose a later LHD Niva over a much older / likely rustier UK 1990's model just to get the RHD.
The last picture shows the additional sets of wheels available by separate negotiation. One set is a set of 1990's Niva 'Cossack' alloys with Insa Dakar tyres, and the second set is a set of Suzuki steel rims with almost new Insa Turbo tyres on them. There is also some green laning gear including a brand new 8m recovery rope with hard and soft shackles, and a CB radio and magnetic whiplash aerial.
