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Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

myvolvoex90.com

401–410 of 436 posts

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#401
post #45

Volvo may not want to replace the car for the guy...but from a marketing standpoint, they truly picked the wrong hill. The site is very nice and pretty thorough. Makes me not want to get this car or any Volvo!

I applaud his efforts to document this what must’ve been a nightmare of a case for him. But it felt like a lot of the wording is speculative or hyperbolic in nature and aggressively tries to paint Volvo in a bad light. For example: “Analysis of Volvo's Final Response: This response … confirms Volvo's complete abandonment of customer responsibility…This is Volvo's definition of ‘customer care’ in 2025.” “Center Displa…

A lot of the language and wording on this site it’s not actually the author’s - most of it is AI-generated. The “analysis of”, which is actually longer than the letter it analyzes, is a glaring example.

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#402

Volvo sadly no longer stands for Swedish quality and safety. What you’re buying is essentially an overpriced Chinese car with Volvo stickers. And I’m saying this as a Swede. Buy German cars, specifically within the Volkswagen auto group (Audi, VW, Skoda etc) if you want reliable quality.

> Volvo sadly no longer stands for Swedish quality and safety. which Swedish or EU companies do? not a trick question - I'm genuinely baffled by systematic QA neglect in most EU based companies (which are still better than much US companies) .

The digital situation is different. See Mullvad, Inleed or Hetzner.

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#403
post #359

Volvo sadly no longer stands for Swedish quality and safety. What you’re buying is essentially an overpriced Chinese car with Volvo stickers. And I’m saying this as a Swede. Buy German cars, specifically within the Volkswagen auto group (Audi, VW, Skoda etc) if you want reliable quality.

> And I’m saying this as a Swede. Buy German cars And I'm saying _this_ as a Swede, because apparently it matters: what cars are most reliable is publicly available information, and they're all from Asia. My personal favorite is Toyota.

I assume you're referring to Länsförsäkringars list of most reliable cars (in terms of engine/mechanical fault).

While it's true that it's mainly asian/Japanese cars that are least reported, that doesn't make them the most reliable in general.

Mazdas and Toyotas tend to rust off in our nordic weather way faster than german brands or older Volvos. Sure, the engine might still run but what difference does it make if it's all become a piece of rust that is ready to fall apart within ten years.

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so sure about Subaru. I love my Outback but it is also the only car I've ever owned which left me stranded twice due to two separate firmware issues. Both issues were known and Subaru failed to communicate them to me. I will probably go with Toyota for our next car despite loving the handling and comfort of our Subaru.

Yeah, we have an Outback as well (2017) and it, too, left us "stranded" (it was parked at home but failed when we really needed it) due to probably the same thing ? Ours drained the battery dead both times. We brought it in both times and had them look it over, both times they blamed us, saying we left a light on (we didn't). Then my wife remembered a recall notice concerning the electrical system, and suddenly they…

Same year here. Actually the battery charging issue left us stranded a few times but only once in public. It was the faulty fuel gauge firmware that left us stranded on the side of the I-5 freeway in the middle of CA.

The CVT sort of sucks. Mostly ok but we have a long lag between reverse and drive which causes the car to jerk forward if you try to accelerate before the forward motion starts. The turning radius is amazing though.

My father in law is a Toyota mechanic and warned me to get rid of the car before 100k miles though as more recent subies are as reliable as they used to be.

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Tesla's speed and "engine" warning lights are on screen. IMO it's not really critical, given you can reboot the screen while driving. There aren't any "controls" on screen, idk what you are waffling about.

This is Volvo being discussed, not Tesla, and the very specific controls are shown in the article linked. Idk why you're pulling this non sequitur and then discussing with it?

> They have cars these days

Who is “they”?

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#406
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't take much driving for a new EV to balance out the environmental cost of harvesting, shipping, pumping, and burning all that petrol. As I understand it, about 20k km or 15k miles, on average.

This is comparing BUYING a new gas car to BUYING a new electric car. I already have the gas car from 8 years ago. From what I can tell keeping this is way better than buying any new car - of course if I do buy a new one it’ll be electric. But keeping an existing car uses way less co2 than buying a new one.

The markets for EVs and gas cars are fairly established, so your personal choice to keep fixing your car vs selling it to someone else who will fix it instead doesn't have a net change on the environment. Nor does your choice to buy a new car or a used car.

The only thing that matters, really, is whether you are personally supporting the oil market or the electric market, how much, whether electric generation in your area has a good mix of green sources, and your support for political willingness to embrace policy that identifies and prices-in the side-effects on the environment, such as eliminating subsidies for oil companies. It all boils down to your willingness to put your money where your beliefs are, which for some people is very hard to do, for some people is not very hard to do, and for some people the environment just doesn't factor into their decision making at all. Tragedy of the commons, or will enough people actually care? Those who have the means and the awareness, definitely should.

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#407

New cars are a fool’s game for most people, imho. Unless you just insist on having the newest thing, they rarely make sense. Couple that with the relentless electronic gadgetry and phone-home surveillance and I may never own a car produced after ~2020. Our current stable: 2007 Mazdaspeed 3, just keeps going. All buttons, no screens. 2016 Porsche Cayman, one small multifunction screen, display only, no touch. Buttons…

The Cayman you mention has a resistive touchscreen, but to your point, everything that needs a physical control has a physical control. These were global-maximum designs, it's all downhill from here.

Are you sure? It’s a small screen, controlled by a stalk on the right side of the steering column. It has never occurred to me that touching it might do something, but now I’ll have to be sure.

Also, note that this is a base model, with various “enhancements” added later, so it may be lacking certain (all) options.

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#408

New cars are a fool’s game for most people, imho. Unless you just insist on having the newest thing, they rarely make sense. Couple that with the relentless electronic gadgetry and phone-home surveillance and I may never own a car produced after ~2020. Our current stable: 2007 Mazdaspeed 3, just keeps going. All buttons, no screens. 2016 Porsche Cayman, one small multifunction screen, display only, no touch. Buttons…

This is just a silly statement. Your 2007, 2016, and 2016 vehicles were all new cars in 2007, 2016, and 2016. There are plenty of 2020-era cars that are, so far, remarkably reliable and cheap to maintain and repair. It's simply that Volvo and Polestar are quite bad at making vehicles.

To clarify, I was making two independent points and didn’t do a good job of separating them. These being:

1. It frequently makes sense to buy older cars for several reasons (cost, common problems being recognized and understood).

2. I’m not interested in anything after ~2020 or so, not because they aren’t built well, but because they include too many “features” that I refuse to own. Two-way telemetry, that sort of thing.

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#409
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buy German cars VW ID.4 owner here. The car is pretty good mechanically, but the software is garbage, or more specifically hot dumpster fire.

ID.7 owner here. Car is good, software is good. Window buttons are questionable.

> Window buttons are questionable

How questionable?

In my ID.4 pressing both buttons with windows half-open will sometimes close both windows and sometimes one window will go up and the other down. Does that qualify as "questionable"? :-)

> software is good

You mean your parking cameras always turn on when needed and you don't get a black screen where the camera image should be about 30% of the time? Can the car recognize two drivers by keyfob and not mix up their settings? Does it not prompt you to "log in" (confirm the driver) every time you start it? Is anything except the background color tied to the whole login thing (like, for example, seat settings)?

My bar is pretty low here after the ID.4 hot garbage software.

Re: Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we have an Outback as well (2017) and it, too, left us "stranded" (it was parked at home but failed when we really needed it) due to probably the same thing ? Ours drained the battery dead both times. We brought it in both times and had them look it over, both times they blamed us, saying we left a light on (we didn't). Then my wife remembered a recall notice concerning the electrical system, and suddenly they…

Same year here. Actually the battery charging issue left us stranded a few times but only once in public. It was the faulty fuel gauge firmware that left us stranded on the side of the I-5 freeway in the middle of CA. The CVT sort of sucks. Mostly ok but we have a long lag between reverse and drive which causes the car to jerk forward if you try to accelerate before the forward motion starts. The turning radius is am…

Good to know about more recent subies, although ... how do you feel about the new Outback look?

Personally, not a fan :(

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