Perhaps some due diligence might have been in order. Thanks to advance information that was readily available on this forum and elsewhere, I cancelled my original order for a 2015 V60 Platinum placed back in February and opted to wait three months (by extending my previous lease) and ordered a 2015.5 V60 Platinum when I learned that Sensus would be replaced by Sensus Connect in the new MY.
Due diligence?
Firstly, I was researching a half-dozen CUV's... RDX, X3, GLK, RX350, Q5, XC60 and even the SRX. For whatever reason I did not find this forum until I had bought the car. I did visit some other Volvo forums... the ones that had "Volvo" in their names, but they did not provide much useful information. I may have stumbled upon a "Swedespeed" URL, but... with apologies to the performance-minded owners on this board... I would not have associated "speed" with Volvo. Saab perhaps, or Husqvarna motorcycles, but most of the Volvo drivers that I know regard the speed limit as the Eleventh Commandment. (And "Sweedspeed" sounds like it's a company doing performance upgrades). But I digress....
You are correct insofar as it was not a secret that there was a new Sensus system for 2015. In a February press release Volvo announced that
"With the launch of Sensus Connect, Volvo Car Group (Volvo Cars) reveals an updated on-board infotainment and navigation solutions. Now, Volvo Cars truly offers customers a fully connected experience".
Another press release stated that
"From model year 2015, all new Volvo models can be equipped with the updated on-board infotainment and navigation experience Sensus Connect, offering customers a fully connected car".
In any case, I'd been shopping (off and on) for about a year, and had done enough due diligence to know that the onboard navigation system which was included in the 2013 and 2014 Platinum XC60s was dreadful, and indeed I had crossed Volvo off of my shopping list. But then in the early summer I read a review of the 2015 XC60 which praised the new navigation system, and I decided to reconsider Volvo.
When I visited my Volvo dealer in June there were MY15s in the showroom and there were still some MY14s on the lot. I told the salesman that I was considering the purchase of a 2015 in Platinum, because I had read that the navigation system had been much improved over the 2014 version. He did not have a Platinum tester, and he certainly did not inform me of a coming mid-year model change... or that the navigation system in the "2015" models that he was selling had the same navigation system used in the 2013 and 2014 models... nor, for that matter, that the "2015" XC60 that I was about to buy was identical in every respect to a 2014 model.
This was four months after Volvo announced the new cars. I know that we shouldn't take marketing materials seriously, however when Volvo states that
"From model year 2015, all new Volvo models can be equipped with the updated on-board infotainment and navigation experience Sensus Connect..." most people would assume that they meant
all 2015 models (rather than all 2015 models except the ones that we built in January which are identical to the old 2014 models and which cannot be equipped with the updated on-board... etc.).
Similarly, when Volvo announced that
"Now, Volvo Cars truly offers customers a fully connected experience" some people might have interpreted
"now" to mean
"at the present time". And of course, when they read that
"Volvo Cars truly offers customers a fully connected experience" they might have assumed that Volvo Cars was
actually offering that experience (when we now know that Volvo had plans to offer the fully connected experience at a future time).
According to the manufacturer's plate the car that I bought in late June... four months after those press releases... was built in January and it is identical to a 2014 car. Indeed the only indication that my car is a "2015" is the vehicle registration, and the dealer could have just as easily told the Ministry of Transport that it was a 2016, or a 2017 model. Given that my car has everything in common with a 2014, and none of the Sensus functionality which Volvo had boasted was available on
all 2015 models, it is my opinion that the car that I bought four months ago is, in fact, a 2014. (It is also worth noting that the owners manual gives no indication of the model year, but is copyrighted "2010 - 2013").
So no, it was not a secret that Volvo had a new navigation system for 2015. The
"secret" was that notwithstanding Volvo's claim (in February) that it was "now" offering the new Sensus Connect, or that "all" 2015 models could be equipped with it, it would be several months before the new cars would appear in North America. And of course, Volvo did not share the information that until such time as they did appear on dealers' lots Volvo would be selling its 2014 models as 2015s.
How could I not have realized that I was getting a 2014? As noted, no dealer could show me a Platinum demonstrator, and in any case my primary concern was getting a usable navigation system, and I had little interest in using the car as a hotspot to check email or play WoW. I'd read that the new system was substantially better than the old, and it would never have occurred to me that I was about to be scammed. When I picked the car up the salesman gave me a fairly thorough tour of the car's features... and it did have something called "Sensus", although when I asked him to demo the navigation system he claimed that he did not know how it worked. This did not surprise me... notwithstanding that the salesman had been selling Volvos for many years I assumed that I was getting a system which was new to both of us. Of course, in retrospect it occurs to me that he may not have wanted to demonstrate the navigation system because he knew that it was the old system and that it did not work worth a %&$#@.
Due diligence? I recognize that "due diligence" is necessary when doing business with swindlers, fraudsters and incompetents .
So yes, perhaps you're right. Perhaps I ought to have done more due diligence.
