Hold on, driver: social activists insist on revocation of Lada Vesta campaign

Public activists intend to seek a full-fledged recall campaign for AvtoVAZ's Lada Vesta cars after an accident in the Vladimir region with a car of this brand occurred on September 18, 2025. The car lost control and flew off the road due to the steering wheel being blocked on the move, Alexander Shumsky, the victim's lawyer, told Izvestia. The female driver was taken to the hospital with severe spinal injuries and is awaiting surgery. Experts believe that possible reasons may be hidden in the operation of the software. However, information about the steering wheel lock problem appeared back in August. Then AvtoVAZ announced a service campaign, but there was no recall of the cars. The manufacturer is ready to examine the specified situation in detail if specific information is received.

Steering wheel lock for Lada Vesta

The National Automobile Union (NAS) intends to insist on conducting a full-fledged recall campaign for Lada Vesta cars. The reason was an accident in the Vladimir region, which allegedly occurred due to the steering wheel being blocked during movement. The car pulled over to the side of the road, lost control and rolled over several times.

"This is the first recorded case of a serious traffic accident after a recognized technical feature in AvtoVAZ cars," said Alexander Shumsky, an auto blogger and lawyer, in his Telegram channel.

As he told Izvestia, the victims contacted him after the registration of the accident and told about the accident. Motorist Natalia was driving along the Narmuch — Gus-Khrustalny highway on September 18 and at about 10:00 a.m. she felt that the steering wheel was jammed when the car entered a small bend. The car left the road at high speed and was seriously damaged.

— Drivers of passing cars called an ambulance and traffic police, — Alexander Shumsky continued. — For some reason, they thought that the car's alarm system had not worked.

However, ERA-GLONASS confirmed that it had recorded an accident. On September 18, at 10:51 a.m., information about the incident, including the coordinates of the vehicle, was transmitted to the regional 112 system.

"The emergency call device installed in the car initiated an emergency call in automatic mode, which confirms the fact of a collision/rollover of the vehicle,— GLONASS JSC told Izvestia. — Information about the incident was recorded in the ERA-GLONASS system, including the operator's voice request to the car interior.

According to the lawyer, Natalia was taken to a hospital in Vladimir with a fractured spine. On Thursday, October 2, she was transported to Nizhny Novgorod for surgery. Her husband Sergey, the owner of the car, called the Lada hotline and asked to call a tow truck, but was refused. Sergey himself confirmed to Izvestia that he had called the automaker's customer support hotline.

AvtoVAZ reported that to date, the Lada hotline has not received any complaints about the accident due to the steering wheel lock.

—Of course, AvtoVAZ is interested in analyzing and analyzing such incidents if they occur," the manufacturer's press service told Izvestia. — However, in the photos that are published on the Internet, the car is presented with the state registration plates removed. Let's leave aside the logic of this decision, but for now, we ask you to refrain from unreasonable premature conclusions and accusations.

Lada Vesta owners began to report problems with steering on social networks back in the summer of 2025. They posted videos showing that the car was moving along the road, the ignition was on, but for some reason the steering wheel was locked and would not turn even with great effort. In August, NAS President Anton Shaparin appealed to Rosstandart with a request to carry out a set of supervisory measures, including an appeal to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to analyze accidents involving Lada Vesta cars.

At the same time, AvtoVAZ announced the launch of a free steering repair campaign for the Lada Vesta model, aimed at avoiding unplanned steering lock on the second-generation Vesta.

"At the next scheduled or unscheduled visit to the service, the firmware version of one of the electronic units is checked and, if necessary, updated. An additional operation is related to the algorithm of actions when stopping and restarting the engine, which is fully described in the vehicle's operating instructions (you must wait five seconds between these actions)," the company said in an August statement.

As the Ministry of Industry and Trade informed Izvestia, at the moment all cars (in particular, Lada Vesta) produced by Russian manufacturers fully comply with the requirements of the Technical Regulations "On the safety of wheeled vehicles". The manufacturer has received vehicle type approval for the specified model, which, in particular, confirms the successful completion of tests in an accredited laboratory.

— According to our information, by now AvtoVAZ has not received information about such accidents through official channels. The manufacturer is ready to examine the specified situation in detail if specific information is received," the press service of the department noted.

Izvestia sent inquiries to Rosstandart and to Lada brand dealerships in the Vladimir region.

The steering wheel is locked and the electric booster is turned off

Official Lada dealers told Izvestia in late August that they had never encountered Vesta steering wheel locks on the move, but independent service stations observed them. Moreover, one of the owners of such a service station got into a similar accident.

— When the steering wheel on our Vesta jammed, the turn on the road was about 30 degrees, — the head of the car service told Izvestia XXAUTO.pro Maxim Bakhvalov is in Ivanovo. — The steering wheel did not turn, but we were lucky — there was a low speed, and there were no cars or fences ahead, but there was a snowdrift into which the car rolled. He was not seriously injured.

According to the motorist, the problem with the lock was announced to dealers, but then they offered to bring the car to them for diagnosis at the time of the malfunction — that is, when the steering wheel is locked on the move. They allegedly could not count the error without it and refused to fix it.

— That is, the car would have to be left after an accident with the engine running and taken by tow truck to dealers. And this is prohibited by safety regulations," Maxim Bakhvalov notes. — Tow trucks are not allowed to transport vehicles with their engines running. Thus, it is difficult to officially fix the malfunction, since dealers do not strive for this and do not accept video recordings of the owners.

Even on an overturned car in the Vladimir region, it is likely to be difficult to prove that the accident occurred due to the steering wheel lock, the expert believes. The engine was turned off there so that there was no fire, and the on-board power grid was de-energized, that is, the battery terminal was removed to avoid fire. In this case, it is impossible to demonstrate the malfunction to AvtoVAZ experts.

A similar situation occurred with motorist Yuri Akimov from Chelyabinsk. According to him, steering difficulties on his second-generation Lada Vesta have occurred repeatedly.

— On my car built in 2024, the power steering suddenly turns off, which makes the steering wheel heavier and difficult to turn, - Yuri Akimov told Izvestia. — This happens while driving. After restarting the motor, the electric booster returns to working, but if it turns off on the move, it is difficult to drive and there is a risk of getting into an accident.

According to him, Lada dealers for some reason cannot consider the error as diagnostic equipment, since it does not remain in the unit, and without this confirmation it is impossible to get repairs. They do not take into account the video recording of the malfunction with the VIN and license plate number of the car, but recommend that next time you drive a car with the engine running and a malfunction on the tow truck, there are dozens of such complaints on the Lada Vesta forums, the motorist notes.

— Steering problems on Lada have been known for a long time. They do record amp shutdowns. Therefore, two versions can be considered in the accident in the Vladimir region.: locking the steering wheel or turning off the electric booster," Vyacheslav Subbotin, the author and presenter of the Mintrans program, an auto expert, told Izvestia. — In both cases, it was difficult for the female motorist to turn the steering wheel.

These malfunctions may be the result of a software error that occurs when the voltage drops in the on-board network. The control unit then "thinks" that the motor is not working, which is why it turns off the amplifier or activates the lock on the steering wheel, the expert suggests.

— Steering wheel lock is a serious problem that AvtoVAZ tried to solve with a service campaign. At the same time, no proper information was provided," Anton Shaparin told Izvestia. — We were contacted by people who encountered the problem again after flashing at Lada dealers.

In any case, repeated complaints about steering malfunctions on Lada require an independent investigation and correction, he believes.