Just a few notes and impressions from a recent road trip to the Smoky Mountains--car packed to the gills with luggage and family.
1) This car loves mountain roads and even when loaded up with extra weight the PSS's held on like glue (helped that it was HOT out). As discussed elsewhere, there are amazing roads in this region outside the well-known tourist routes that are often crowded, heavily patrolled and low speed limits.
2) Can't remember who, but someone reported an annoying creaking sound from the front left pillar area (perhaps the ticket/tag holder?). My car now has this annoying syndrome and it is driven by heat and body flex--it only occurs after the car has been out in the sun. It is the trim on the left front pillar. I can replicate the squeak/creak by fiddling with it. Will have to get it fixed as it is highly annoying and chintzy sounding. Hopefully it's a common enough problem that Volvo will know what to do.
3) Mileage was more than acceptable. This car is quite reasonably economical if you want it to be. I tested a few sections of driving like an "economy mode." The km (miles) to empty calculator went crazy a few times, reporting excessive numbers after long stretches of downhill grades.
4) Why is there not (or if there is, it isn't as obvious as it should be) a simple switch from metric to US (or UK) Imperial for the instrument readout? It would be very easy to implement, so I can only assume it di not there on purpose to make cross-border shopping more difficult and expensive. Would have been handy and might have prevented me from getting my first speeding ticket. I doubt it though, as it was a blatant speed trap going down a huge, very long hill on the widest, flattest, smoothest, safest stretch of road the whole trip. Cops hiding behind a barrier just waiting to catch people like me unwilling to ride the brakes the whole way down the hill. There were no other cars within sight of me on my side of the road. $30 ticket, but with a zillion dollars of administrative and court fees. Welcome to North Carolina.
5) Speaking of not riding the brakes, half the reason is because of the brake dust. It is absolutely ridiculous. At one point I as able to use a hose at a motel and cleaned the wheels using a special "touchless" cleaner (that still requires hand rubbing). Within half a day of highway driving (very little braking), they were already in need of a cleaning again. Please someone figure out brake pads that work as well as the Brembos but that don't produce this excessive dust. I am not a clean freak (probably compared to many on here), but if you are someone who wants a clean looking car , you would have to do these wheels every time you drove the car. That is absurd.
6) Using my "urban" 13/13 damper settings, the car was smooth (enough) on the big highways, but could still absorb the ripples and frost heaves on smaller mountain roads and the severely broken pavement you find in every US built-up area save for a few rich enclaves. 10/10 or 8/8 would have been better if the car was empty and I was taking the car on a "run" through the mountains. The good thing is that if I wanted to do that, it would have taken only a few minutes to switch it over for that purpose. But the car was absolutely unflappable. That is more important to me than electronic adjustments that would be more convenient. Nothing upset the car (suspension), ever, for the entire trip. Like driving a true brick. Couldn't be happier.
7) Voice command for Nav is hopeless, as it is in every car. Nav itself was useful sometimes, and useless others. Overall, the interface sucks as the manual entry options is also rather stupid (except for the ability to enter street numbers using the keypad). And the faded edges at night is absurd. My prior cars had a similar night mode with pretend stars at night, etc.--but they didn't reduce the useful size of the screen in the process. The nav screen is already too small and this mode cuts it down significantly. When you can't see as well in the real outside view, you need more information on the nav map, not less. A completely clueless design.
8) In the NC and TN heat, the not-full leather seats were great. Black leather would have burned our backs and butts on many occasions.
9) ACC - no change in my views from the other thread. Handy if you want to drive without paying full attention (or need to momentarily), but contributes to overall road congestion and frustration by turning you into one more lemming-like moron following the bumper in front of you instead of watching far up the road and adjusting behaviour appropriately (the way every safe and competent driver is supposed to drive according to every driver manual and instructor out there). It can glitch if you are changing lanes close behind two cars (if you prevented it from slamming the brakes on when someone driving stupidly in front of you cuts you off). By keeping your foot on the accelerator, you can creep closer to the car in front and then as you switch lanes to go behind a faster moving car in the adjoining lane, the radar sees an open spot and guns it. I had to manually slam on the brakes as the car continued to accelerate as if the other car was not there. And I let it go to the last moment as a test--I was within half a meter (2 feet) of the other car when I hit the brakes as my P* was determined to drive right into the back of the other car).
10) Overall impression is that the car proved why I chose it in the first place. An extremely fun car to toss around any kind of road (not track) with abandon that also happens to be a completely practical family car at the same time. Exactly my definition of perfect if you want only one vehicle.
1) This car loves mountain roads and even when loaded up with extra weight the PSS's held on like glue (helped that it was HOT out). As discussed elsewhere, there are amazing roads in this region outside the well-known tourist routes that are often crowded, heavily patrolled and low speed limits.
2) Can't remember who, but someone reported an annoying creaking sound from the front left pillar area (perhaps the ticket/tag holder?). My car now has this annoying syndrome and it is driven by heat and body flex--it only occurs after the car has been out in the sun. It is the trim on the left front pillar. I can replicate the squeak/creak by fiddling with it. Will have to get it fixed as it is highly annoying and chintzy sounding. Hopefully it's a common enough problem that Volvo will know what to do.
3) Mileage was more than acceptable. This car is quite reasonably economical if you want it to be. I tested a few sections of driving like an "economy mode." The km (miles) to empty calculator went crazy a few times, reporting excessive numbers after long stretches of downhill grades.
4) Why is there not (or if there is, it isn't as obvious as it should be) a simple switch from metric to US (or UK) Imperial for the instrument readout? It would be very easy to implement, so I can only assume it di not there on purpose to make cross-border shopping more difficult and expensive. Would have been handy and might have prevented me from getting my first speeding ticket. I doubt it though, as it was a blatant speed trap going down a huge, very long hill on the widest, flattest, smoothest, safest stretch of road the whole trip. Cops hiding behind a barrier just waiting to catch people like me unwilling to ride the brakes the whole way down the hill. There were no other cars within sight of me on my side of the road. $30 ticket, but with a zillion dollars of administrative and court fees. Welcome to North Carolina.
5) Speaking of not riding the brakes, half the reason is because of the brake dust. It is absolutely ridiculous. At one point I as able to use a hose at a motel and cleaned the wheels using a special "touchless" cleaner (that still requires hand rubbing). Within half a day of highway driving (very little braking), they were already in need of a cleaning again. Please someone figure out brake pads that work as well as the Brembos but that don't produce this excessive dust. I am not a clean freak (probably compared to many on here), but if you are someone who wants a clean looking car , you would have to do these wheels every time you drove the car. That is absurd.
6) Using my "urban" 13/13 damper settings, the car was smooth (enough) on the big highways, but could still absorb the ripples and frost heaves on smaller mountain roads and the severely broken pavement you find in every US built-up area save for a few rich enclaves. 10/10 or 8/8 would have been better if the car was empty and I was taking the car on a "run" through the mountains. The good thing is that if I wanted to do that, it would have taken only a few minutes to switch it over for that purpose. But the car was absolutely unflappable. That is more important to me than electronic adjustments that would be more convenient. Nothing upset the car (suspension), ever, for the entire trip. Like driving a true brick. Couldn't be happier.
7) Voice command for Nav is hopeless, as it is in every car. Nav itself was useful sometimes, and useless others. Overall, the interface sucks as the manual entry options is also rather stupid (except for the ability to enter street numbers using the keypad). And the faded edges at night is absurd. My prior cars had a similar night mode with pretend stars at night, etc.--but they didn't reduce the useful size of the screen in the process. The nav screen is already too small and this mode cuts it down significantly. When you can't see as well in the real outside view, you need more information on the nav map, not less. A completely clueless design.
8) In the NC and TN heat, the not-full leather seats were great. Black leather would have burned our backs and butts on many occasions.
9) ACC - no change in my views from the other thread. Handy if you want to drive without paying full attention (or need to momentarily), but contributes to overall road congestion and frustration by turning you into one more lemming-like moron following the bumper in front of you instead of watching far up the road and adjusting behaviour appropriately (the way every safe and competent driver is supposed to drive according to every driver manual and instructor out there). It can glitch if you are changing lanes close behind two cars (if you prevented it from slamming the brakes on when someone driving stupidly in front of you cuts you off). By keeping your foot on the accelerator, you can creep closer to the car in front and then as you switch lanes to go behind a faster moving car in the adjoining lane, the radar sees an open spot and guns it. I had to manually slam on the brakes as the car continued to accelerate as if the other car was not there. And I let it go to the last moment as a test--I was within half a meter (2 feet) of the other car when I hit the brakes as my P* was determined to drive right into the back of the other car).
10) Overall impression is that the car proved why I chose it in the first place. An extremely fun car to toss around any kind of road (not track) with abandon that also happens to be a completely practical family car at the same time. Exactly my definition of perfect if you want only one vehicle.
