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 Display Failure - Critical Interface Blackout: Main Controls Inaccessible”
“Climate Control Malfunction - Climate System Override: Controls Unresponsive Despite Interface Status”
“Complete Center Screen Malfunction - Total System Breakdown: Hard Reset Failed to Restore Screen”
I know little about Volvo or this case; I’m choosing to offer them some benefits of doubt. Comms and decision making are prone to break down on the corporate ladder. Volvo had no doubt fumbled his case badly but I’m not convinced it is indicative of the company’s overall customer support policy. Sure, the main touchscreen had failed. But how is this an “override” of HVAC or a “total system breakdown”? And what’s the “system” anyways? On top of all that, these subtitle summaries smell like AI.
I don’t deny that Volvo has a lot to answer for. Though the choice of these instigating descriptions might not be the best one giving the author is actively pursuing litigation.
> 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:
Part of it is that he clearly used ChatGPT or Claude to write the prose. (I really should not have to explain how, despite not reading the OP at all, your example quote alone establishes that. You see this kind of hyperbolic unordered list/checklist all the time now. This seems like more of a Claude tic, but could also be ChatGPT due to sheer base rates.)
Being sycophantic and ordered to write polemic, a LLM'll go overboard.
I don't think I'd spend 150k for a car, I imagine it would create a certain sense of entitlement, but he does sound pretty annoying.
It's just an order mess-up, but opening with stuff like: "Sent a formal complaint to Volvo Canada on January 16, requesting escalation to Managing Director Matt Girgis. Volvo Canada never confirmed this escalation." is a vibe.
Eh the author is coming from a place of emotion (considering the effort put into the website) so I would definitely cut them some slack on the fairness of their reporting. The owner is telling their story, not a journalist.
> But how is this an “override” of HVAC or a “total system breakdown”?
Complete failure of the throttle would fall within total system breakdown to me.
> Comms and decision making are prone to break down on the corporate ladder.
Businesses do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, they aren't human. If their support ladder broke down to this point that it is fair game to name and shame and up to them to do a PR push and fix their support.
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.
Agree 100% the website is very well layed out. The information is presented in very readable format. After a single scroll I was able to fully understand the issues and conclude that the guy has a valid case. Too bad for Volvo for having a horrible customer support
I loved our XC90 (non electric) but one day rainwater began pouring in through the windsheild behind the rear-view mirror. It quickly got into the electrical system and nothing worked reliably after that. Volvo absolutely refused to fix it, or acknowledge that there was a problem, despite hundreds of posts pointing out similar window leaks. Was very disappointing.
This is why it is of crucial importance for companies to take things like this seriously. A customer complaint can quickly become a crisis and lead do serious damage to the brand.
Anyone with any training in crisis management would immediately refund the purchase price, apologize and offer a discount on a replacement.
The negative publicity of this post alone has cost the company millions in customer goodwill.
Old Volvo is different than new Volvo. They went downhill when and after ford bought them. Also the new cars lack the charm of the older 240s, they're sorta just regular luxury cars now.
Only recently sold my 850 because we're expecting a kid and wanted to mount the car seat correctly.
I'm saying this as a German, i strongly reject those accusations. Do not buy from VW group (and not from PSA/Stellantis (Citroen, Fiat, Opel etc brands), either).
I have been driving VW for decades. Never had any issue apart from some Apple CarPlay snags. Drove Golf, Touran and Tuiguan Allspace. Always a pleasure.
I rented an Audi Q7 for a week recently. The drive quality of the car is excellent. But the software is terrible. Just getting CarPlay to work every time is a challenge. I will not be buying an Audi any time soon.
As more and more of the vehicle's experience becomes software controlled, manufacturers who don't have good software development teams are going to lose out. German companies don't seem to understand the growing importance of software, and they are happy to collectively develop the software [1] as opposed to seeing software as a key differentiator.
Software is indeed a differentiator, as in I want as little as possible of that shit in my car. Any car where all the controls are on a giant iPad in the middle are a non-starter for me.
The VW Group is putting billions into their partnership with Rivian specifically to improve the software experience (and enabling hardware). It may be the only thing that keeps Rivian alive until (if) the R2 successfully launches to the mass market.
>German companies don't seem to understand the growing importance of software
VWAG is now on attempt number two of fixing their Software problems.
They tried Cariad, the result was your experience. The next attempt is giving billions to Rivian.
If you believe that these companies do not understand how important software is you are totally delusional. Literally Billions worth of money have they spent trying to fix that.
> 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.
I feel it's quite off-base to associate the quality of a car to a country. The quality of a car is a statistical quantity that's mostly related to a specific model of car.
There are at least 3 wrong insinuations in the above post.
1. Volvo engineering is still mostly based in Sweden. Geely has mostly not touched it. So it's still Swedish -- thus it is still Swedish quality and safety. If it has gone down, then it's Swedish quality and safety that has gone down.
2. Many Chinese cars are now high quality.
3. That countries are correlated with quality is a lazy mental shortcut. Many Mitsubishi are not high quality, despite being Japanese.
Also the Volvo EX90 (in the article) is made in Charleston SC.
Quality is not just based on the design some office workers come up with. It’s also manufacturing process, material sourcing (iron ore etc) and processing of these materials.
The list goes on. But yeah, if I look at for instance Volvo EX30 or EX40 etc, they look very ”off” somehow and doesn’t scream ”built to last” any longer.
Compared to the older XC70, 740 and so on which are built like locomotives.
I strongly believe that some countries correlate with quality (in general, and depending on the subject). It has to do with the way of working I guess. People in countries with stronger hierarchy in the workplace tend to polish away the faults and shortcomings when reporting to their superiors.
I don’t believe there’s anything strange in thinking that way. It’s as if saying the Avocados in Peru is generally better and higher quality than the Avocados produced in Spain.
Not even, BYD and other Chinese car companies make great, reliable cars. This is simply Volvo intentionally and likely knowingly cheating out as much as possible to make a quick buck, burning their brand in the process
There was fuel tank burst open in cold weather overnight incident, sudden fires and explosions of (presumable hybrid) Chinese cars, etc. Chinese cars are not on market for time enough to even consider their reliability. Let's wait for ten years, at the very least.
The quality of ride of Chinese cars is not even close to their European counterparts, children get sick even on the front row in ten minutes in a car that costs next to $60K. Their suspension is such that they do not compensate for sudden roll when one side of car hits a bump or hole.
Rolls Royce made their Phantoms to have adjustable clearance so that Chinese buyers would not suffer from bad roads of China, yet all of the buyers of Chinese cars have to suffer from roads that are not ideally paved.
Not only that, they also have a fairly conservative approach to design that seems to keep a lot of the stupid bullshit out of their cars. I own multiple late model Japanese cars from different manufacturers and have had zero issues with them. The ADAS systems they do have, while arguably basic by 2025 standards, function flawlessly. All essential controls (including climate control) are physical.
To be honest, it has never been about pure brand. Every brand has had clunkers and has had great models.
Having said that, Toyota is known for their reliability, and Volvo (+ Polestar) was / are known for their safety.
Just to emphasize the point: Nissan is doomed because generally no one wants their cars, but they have perhaps one of the greatest bang-for-buck EVs outside of Chinese brands: the Leaf 2.
Was told by a mechanic a few months back that continuously-variable transmissions are standard in gas cars now, but have reliability problems. Old-tech automatics can (could?) still be had from Toyota and Mazda.
Take this with a grain of salt (since it's not first hand experience), but I have heard from friends that the quality of German cars has degraded significantly
I don’t own one, but Volvo certainly still stands for safety. The XC90 (the non-fully electric version of this car) had the most amazing safety record in the UK I’ve ever heard of. For the first 10 years or so it was in service no driver or passenger was killed in an XC90 in any accident in the UK.
That stat is all the more impressive because it’s also a very common car, (at least as far as expensive cars go), so in my area for example I see at least 10 of them parked on the streets on my daily 30min walk in London.
Or just buy a Zeekr (if you want a non-Elon EV) - a much more technically impressive and better looking car than the Volvo or Tesla and it was designed in Europe:
That touch screen-only with the different modes of activation is my nightmare and literally giving me anxiety watching that showcase if that's to be the future of auto driving.
> 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.
I own a 2020 BMW with an electronic gearbox, which broke at around 80k km just a couple of months after the warranty expired (yeah I know!). It was a bit of a headache going back and forth with BMW to request a free repair. Fortunately, the headquarters agreed to cover the cost, and they installed a refurbished electronic gearbox. I was quite relieved that I didn’t have to pay about €10K out of pocket!
All that to say that I wouldn’t call BMW particularly reliable in terms of quality these days, but their customer support was decent, at least in my case.
I was going to create a website just like this but for my Audi Q5. Least reliable car I ever owned. It’s been in the shop about 15 times in 2 years. I finally gave up. It still has a few unsolved issues but I just don’t care. I’ll be trading it in later this year and … Never another Audi again.
I drive a chinese EV and its quality is far beyond anything I could get from european builders. That’s definitely not the source of the problem for Volvo.
This being downvoted only reflects how hard it is for us in the west to accept the current state of things. I suggest visiting the nearest Nio or Zeekr store for a little reality shock.
Meanwhile they praise Polestar, new Mini EVs, Smart, Volvo and others that are also being produced in joint ventures with Chinese manufacturers but don’t carry a chinese brand.
> Buy German cars, specifically within the Volkswagen auto group (Audi, VW, Skoda etc) if you want reliable quality.
German cars, as a rule, are made with complete disregard for the people who will have to work on them. They are reliable while meticulously maintained and before anything even remotely important break. Then they become a nightmare.
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.
i agree on that emission-fraud. but, haha, you know there are loads of videos of your favorite blue colored ones doing the same salute? if that is what keeps you spinning you ran out of car brands long time ago...
In the US, I’ve seen enough problems on VW cars that I won’t make the same conclusion.
US driving culture-wise, I’ve seen Audi and Mercedes drivers adopt the same brain-dead behaviors BMW drivers have that I wouldn’t want to be associated with them either.
If I were to buy a new car today, it would be a Toyota or a Honda, maybe a Hyundai.
I owned a brand new 2024 Audi A6 and the infotainment system, general software, and driver assist functionality was absolutely atrocious to the point of rendering the car inoperable from time to time. Audi refused to acknowledge there was an issue so I sold it privately.
Insane that Volvo doesn't just replace the car. The cost is trivial compared to the brand damage here. The complaint is so well documented and the customer is not being a jerk at all; not sure what Volvo's logic is.
Well if you don't replace the car you save 150K. But you lose a few million, let's say.
Those few million are invisible, the 150K you see right now and you know, for sure, you're saving it. Incidentally, this is how we got into this quality mess. Cutting quality seems like free money... except that it's not, it's just that nobody bothers to measure the opportunity cost.
And then one day you wake up and you're Chrysler, selling piece of shit vehicles for wayyy more than they're worth. And now your brand is worthless. But, at least you saved a few bucks ;P
They'll probably agree on a settlement where they don't admit any wrongdoing and give him a decent payout, but require him to take down the site and sign an NDA or something. So they don't necessarily need to replace all of them after that
If all he wants is a refund, that should do it. But if he's more interested in warning the world, hopefully he sticks to his guns and makes them give a straight up refund
> A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
1. If they really have so many faulty cars on the road that's a serious hazard and any accidents where people die may end up destroying Volvo entirely because of negligence.
2. An economically reasonable answer might be refund the guy making the complaint and ofter all other owners $10k credit towards your next Volvo purchase or free 3 years of maintenance and service. Something like this might be enough to stem the bleeding while protecting the brand.
I had an ex90 on pre-order for a long time, placed it within the first ~30 days of it being open.
It looked to be (and is!) an absolutely beautiful vehicle and also seemed to be making choices in the hardware (lidar) that I hoped, would, eventually deliver a combination of safety and self-driving capabilities that would be unmatched. I was willing to pay a premium and knew that it would take some time for the self-driving to come to fruition, but figured it would be a capable vehicle until that point in time.
But dang, what a botched launch. Not only were there all these issues, which are insane to me that Volvo didn't have more people in social media / subreddit, but also from a financial perspective the car is just insanely hard to get into. Lease terms were absolutely terrible.
I ended up getting a Hyuandai Ioniq 9 and am really glad I went that direction. Yeah, it doesn't offer as much as a Tesla in terms of FSD, but it also has better build quality and interior quality nearly matching the Volvo. I like the styling (but I know some do not), and it has actual physical controls for the stuff I care about and the best heads up display I have used (favorite feature: you get photos of incoming caller). NACS is also great... but I can't bring myself to take 2 spots yet at superchargers.
The best cars were built between 2000 and 2010. Pretty much the pinnacle of the internal combustion engine without all the millions of lines of buggy code that apparently no longer allow you to open your car freely.
In ~2005 I worked with a world-renowned expert on industrial automation and computer control of machines. He drove a 1989 Mercedes 300 sedan with a manual transmission, which he claimed was the last car made with no software in it at all. These two facts are not un-related.
By the 80s electronics were common with fuel injection, but I consider them more like factory controllers than what we call a computer. They're little 8080 variants running closed loops and activating or deactivating output pins
pre 1997/8 Dodge 2500/3500 diesel trucks have mechanical engines in them. Other than the starter you really only need one other wire... goes to the shut off solenoid.
One of my cars is a 2011 Volvo XC90 with ~250K miles on it and I plan to drive into the ground. It's definitely the tail end of that sweet spot and it's quite surprising that it's (technologically) as simple as it is. It has a basic AWD system and only a simple cruise control system but it's the perfect feature set and I use it 80% of the time I'm driving. (I've driven late model rentals which have "smart cruise control" systems and find their "corrections" very unnerving.) For A/V, it doesn't have a backup camera (admittedly kind of a bummer), any LCD screens or touch screens and it doesn't even have Bluetooth for auxiliary audio input. The keys and fobs are about the only aspect of it that I'd say are over-complicated, as it's never had a working fob since I've owned it and getting one is prohibitively expensive ($500+).
That all being said, it's (probably?) not spying on me and isn't likely to do anything unexpected and weird on the highway like the post mentions. I can also totally work on it myself or get my local mechanic to. Although, unsurprisingly, parts are hard to find and more expensive than they are for my Honda.
I've taken it into the Volvo dealership for service on a few occasions and they legitimately laugh at me. ("How many miles are you looking to put on this thing?") I trust their technicians and am willing to pay for certain jobs and diagnoses (probably their most valuable offering) but their service and salespeople look down their noses at me and it's unpleasant. As others have said, Volvo was absolutely a great car company in the past but it doesn't seem to one anymore. Despite how much I like my car, I can't imagine buying one of their modern, tech-centric models -- in part because of posts like this one.
Yep. Many of them are still good and are on the road even with 100,000s of miles on them. Best car I had was a 2007 Vauxhall Astra. Did about 150,000 miles (and I really ragged it). Still on the road apparently. The 2012 Vauxhall Insignia I have isn't great and I regret selling the Astra. Will be selling that car soon.
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 for the very few “features” present on the car.
2016 Ford Transit Connect. 200k miles. Just goes. One small screen, doesn’t interfere with anything critical.
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.
> New cars are a fool’s game for most people, imho.
I’d have agreed with you in the past, but I just bought a new car for the first time. I wanted a compact pickup - there were basically none produced for a decade from 2012-2022 - the ones from before this gap are questionable safety-wise, and now either are falling apart from rust, or going for a hefty premium because there aren’t many enthusiast-maintained rust-free models for sale. The post 2022 ones for sale just don’t have enough of a discount off new models to be worth buying unless.
Yes, anecdata from me as well, but the larger issue seems to be cars that run critical functions through the media or entertainment system only. My neighbor had a hybrid Volvo that was towed to the dealership multiple times because the car wouldn’t start when the media center froze. It was always fixed for free but ultimately they decided to sell it as it wasn’t worth the hassle.
I'm pretty excited about the Slate, bezo's car startup. No built in UI, bring your own device, including screens and sound. Potentially avoids all the overstuffed software issues in modern vehicles
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.
> the environmental cost of producing a new electric car is WAY greater than the petrol I’m burning.
The environmental cost of producing an electric car happens once. But driving a car is an ongoing environmental insult. This is an apples/oranges comparison unless you integrate the driving damage over time.
This analysis suggests EVs are overall a win for the environment after 5 years of ownership, assuming your electricity comes from coal. If it comes from hydro or renewable sources, it's more like one year.
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.
It is still less environmental damage to keep an old vehicle on the road and not create a new one. Some cars can literally last forever (these models are well known) if they are looked after.
The scrap yards are btw filling up with modern cars quite quickly because people cannot afford to repair new cars, or the cars are uneconomical to repair even after minor collisions. Whereas a lot of old cars (pre-2010) can be fixed on your driveway with easily affordable tools.
”I have to press a button on the key fob to open it so it can’t be stolen by relaying the signal.”
Having to press a button on the fob for it to transmit a code key via radio does not mean that the key cannot be captured with an SDR by someone close by.
Only a monotonic code as a part of the key can prevent replay attacks, and only proper encryption can hinder the code from being totally cracked.
> I also still get to feel smug because the environmental cost of producing a new electric car is WAY greater than the petrol I’m burning.
Citation very much needed.
Electric cars are still cars, and therefore terrible for the environment, but they do emit significantly less pollution over their lives and require a lot less oil to operate.
I really want to like volvo, especially their plugin hybrids, but their bad reliability of late is a dealbreaker. No way I'm wasting my life in mechanic hell.
I'm patiently looking to upgrade from my great 2018 subaru forester xt touring, but nothing new seems much better.
I had one of the first newly redesigned Volvos after the Ford acquisition, an S80 T6, either the first or second year released in the US. It was a fantastic car - extremely comfortable, fast, and analog controls for everything.
After five or six years it spent more time being repaired than not, and I sold it. It was one of the few times where having an extended warranty paid off. Haven't really considered a Volvo since.
I was so excited to get my S60 PHEV. Mechanically it is an amazing machine, great handling, great power, I rarely have to put gas in it. BUT. It is a nightmare with the technology.
Like most new cars, everything is tied into the center display/computer. It will crash while driving, which will remove all sound from your car, and I don't mean just the radio/spotify/whatever. You can be in mid-turn with your turn signal on and then just absolute quiet. It is so off-putting. Your blinker stops, you can't really tell your engine is on, and every screen just goes black. Thankfully I don't have a pure electric, so I my car still physically moves, but I really can't believe I haven't gotten in an accident when my screen crashes.
Thankfully I leased this vehicle, and I'm almost done with it, I honestly can't wait to turn it in.
Pure electrics also work when the screen crashes. My Tesla behaves almost exactly as you describe. When the screen crashes / reboots, you loose all displays, all sound, signals, etc. But the car still drives.
I have a rock-solid but aging Kia niro phev and I love it.
I’m thinking of turning it in for an updated model, but the updated model has displays instead of actual gauges and indicator lights like the older niro, and that just makes my skin crawl. It should be damn near impossible for the gauges and indicators to blink out of existence, and reassurance about nothing-but-screens has not been forthcoming.
Readit News
The site is very nice and pretty thorough.
Makes me not want to get this car or any Volvo!
“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 Display Failure - Critical Interface Blackout: Main Controls Inaccessible”
“Climate Control Malfunction - Climate System Override: Controls Unresponsive Despite Interface Status”
“Complete Center Screen Malfunction - Total System Breakdown: Hard Reset Failed to Restore Screen”
I know little about Volvo or this case; I’m choosing to offer them some benefits of doubt. Comms and decision making are prone to break down on the corporate ladder. Volvo had no doubt fumbled his case badly but I’m not convinced it is indicative of the company’s overall customer support policy. Sure, the main touchscreen had failed. But how is this an “override” of HVAC or a “total system breakdown”? And what’s the “system” anyways? On top of all that, these subtitle summaries smell like AI.
I don’t deny that Volvo has a lot to answer for. Though the choice of these instigating descriptions might not be the best one giving the author is actively pursuing litigation.
Part of it is that he clearly used ChatGPT or Claude to write the prose. (I really should not have to explain how, despite not reading the OP at all, your example quote alone establishes that. You see this kind of hyperbolic unordered list/checklist all the time now. This seems like more of a Claude tic, but could also be ChatGPT due to sheer base rates.)
Being sycophantic and ordered to write polemic, a LLM'll go overboard.
It's just an order mess-up, but opening with stuff like: "Sent a formal complaint to Volvo Canada on January 16, requesting escalation to Managing Director Matt Girgis. Volvo Canada never confirmed this escalation." is a vibe.
I'm quite mystified how systemic failures like the throttle response and ESC failures can occur.
I don't think we should blame the customer.
> But how is this an “override” of HVAC or a “total system breakdown”?
Complete failure of the throttle would fall within total system breakdown to me.
> Comms and decision making are prone to break down on the corporate ladder.
Businesses do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, they aren't human. If their support ladder broke down to this point that it is fair game to name and shame and up to them to do a PR push and fix their support.
It seem they are the exact opposite of what I thought.
Anyone with any training in crisis management would immediately refund the purchase price, apologize and offer a discount on a replacement.
The negative publicity of this post alone has cost the company millions in customer goodwill.
Hey Volvo, I’ll now never buy a Volvo. I always thought they were meant to be safe?
Only recently sold my 850 because we're expecting a kid and wanted to mount the car seat correctly.
It’s a mass market luxury vehicle and the brand is still considered about the safest you can buy today.
It’s certainly not known for quality or reliability though. You buy them if your sole focus is on crash safety it seems.
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.
I'm saying this as a German, i strongly reject those accusations. Do not buy from VW group (and not from PSA/Stellantis (Citroen, Fiat, Opel etc brands), either).
As more and more of the vehicle's experience becomes software controlled, manufacturers who don't have good software development teams are going to lose out. German companies don't seem to understand the growing importance of software, and they are happy to collectively develop the software [1] as opposed to seeing software as a key differentiator.
[1] https://www.electrive.com/2025/06/25/automotive-industry-lau...
VWAG is now on attempt number two of fixing their Software problems.
They tried Cariad, the result was your experience. The next attempt is giving billions to Rivian.
If you believe that these companies do not understand how important software is you are totally delusional. Literally Billions worth of money have they spent trying to fix that.
I feel it's quite off-base to associate the quality of a car to a country. The quality of a car is a statistical quantity that's mostly related to a specific model of car.
There are at least 3 wrong insinuations in the above post.
1. Volvo engineering is still mostly based in Sweden. Geely has mostly not touched it. So it's still Swedish -- thus it is still Swedish quality and safety. If it has gone down, then it's Swedish quality and safety that has gone down.
2. Many Chinese cars are now high quality.
3. That countries are correlated with quality is a lazy mental shortcut. Many Mitsubishi are not high quality, despite being Japanese.
Also the Volvo EX90 (in the article) is made in Charleston SC.
The list goes on. But yeah, if I look at for instance Volvo EX30 or EX40 etc, they look very ”off” somehow and doesn’t scream ”built to last” any longer.
Compared to the older XC70, 740 and so on which are built like locomotives.
I strongly believe that some countries correlate with quality (in general, and depending on the subject). It has to do with the way of working I guess. People in countries with stronger hierarchy in the workplace tend to polish away the faults and shortcomings when reporting to their superiors.
I don’t believe there’s anything strange in thinking that way. It’s as if saying the Avocados in Peru is generally better and higher quality than the Avocados produced in Spain.
The quality of ride of Chinese cars is not even close to their European counterparts, children get sick even on the front row in ten minutes in a car that costs next to $60K. Their suspension is such that they do not compensate for sudden roll when one side of car hits a bump or hole.
Rolls Royce made their Phantoms to have adjustable clearance so that Chinese buyers would not suffer from bad roads of China, yet all of the buyers of Chinese cars have to suffer from roads that are not ideally paved.
Having said that, Toyota is known for their reliability, and Volvo (+ Polestar) was / are known for their safety.
Just to emphasize the point: Nissan is doomed because generally no one wants their cars, but they have perhaps one of the greatest bang-for-buck EVs outside of Chinese brands: the Leaf 2.
Take this with a grain of salt (since it's not first hand experience), but I have heard from friends that the quality of German cars has degraded significantly
That stat is all the more impressive because it’s also a very common car, (at least as far as expensive cars go), so in my area for example I see at least 10 of them parked on the streets on my daily 30min walk in London.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvnZ0mTCBng
I own a 2020 BMW with an electronic gearbox, which broke at around 80k km just a couple of months after the warranty expired (yeah I know!). It was a bit of a headache going back and forth with BMW to request a free repair. Fortunately, the headquarters agreed to cover the cost, and they installed a refurbished electronic gearbox. I was quite relieved that I didn’t have to pay about €10K out of pocket!
All that to say that I wouldn’t call BMW particularly reliable in terms of quality these days, but their customer support was decent, at least in my case.
Meanwhile they praise Polestar, new Mini EVs, Smart, Volvo and others that are also being produced in joint ventures with Chinese manufacturers but don’t carry a chinese brand.
German cars, as a rule, are made with complete disregard for the people who will have to work on them. They are reliable while meticulously maintained and before anything even remotely important break. Then they become a nightmare.
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.
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.
I had a 1987 Volvo 760 in the nineties.
It was an unmitigated piece of shit.
VW ID.4 owner here. The car is pretty good mechanically, but the software is garbage, or more specifically hot dumpster fire.
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) .
US driving culture-wise, I’ve seen Audi and Mercedes drivers adopt the same brain-dead behaviors BMW drivers have that I wouldn’t want to be associated with them either.
If I were to buy a new car today, it would be a Toyota or a Honda, maybe a Hyundai.
Avoid like the absolute plague.
Those few million are invisible, the 150K you see right now and you know, for sure, you're saving it. Incidentally, this is how we got into this quality mess. Cutting quality seems like free money... except that it's not, it's just that nobody bothers to measure the opportunity cost.
And then one day you wake up and you're Chrysler, selling piece of shit vehicles for wayyy more than they're worth. And now your brand is worthless. But, at least you saved a few bucks ;P
If all he wants is a refund, that should do it. But if he's more interested in warning the world, hopefully he sticks to his guns and makes them give a straight up refund
- Fight Club
1. If they really have so many faulty cars on the road that's a serious hazard and any accidents where people die may end up destroying Volvo entirely because of negligence.
2. An economically reasonable answer might be refund the guy making the complaint and ofter all other owners $10k credit towards your next Volvo purchase or free 3 years of maintenance and service. Something like this might be enough to stem the bleeding while protecting the brand.
It looked to be (and is!) an absolutely beautiful vehicle and also seemed to be making choices in the hardware (lidar) that I hoped, would, eventually deliver a combination of safety and self-driving capabilities that would be unmatched. I was willing to pay a premium and knew that it would take some time for the self-driving to come to fruition, but figured it would be a capable vehicle until that point in time.
But dang, what a botched launch. Not only were there all these issues, which are insane to me that Volvo didn't have more people in social media / subreddit, but also from a financial perspective the car is just insanely hard to get into. Lease terms were absolutely terrible.
I ended up getting a Hyuandai Ioniq 9 and am really glad I went that direction. Yeah, it doesn't offer as much as a Tesla in terms of FSD, but it also has better build quality and interior quality nearly matching the Volvo. I like the styling (but I know some do not), and it has actual physical controls for the stuff I care about and the best heads up display I have used (favorite feature: you get photos of incoming caller). NACS is also great... but I can't bring myself to take 2 spots yet at superchargers.
Jokes aside, I would love the Ioniq 9, I think it looks much better than the EV9, or even EX90 which I find old looking.
That all being said, it's (probably?) not spying on me and isn't likely to do anything unexpected and weird on the highway like the post mentions. I can also totally work on it myself or get my local mechanic to. Although, unsurprisingly, parts are hard to find and more expensive than they are for my Honda.
I've taken it into the Volvo dealership for service on a few occasions and they legitimately laugh at me. ("How many miles are you looking to put on this thing?") I trust their technicians and am willing to pay for certain jobs and diagnoses (probably their most valuable offering) but their service and salespeople look down their noses at me and it's unpleasant. As others have said, Volvo was absolutely a great car company in the past but it doesn't seem to one anymore. Despite how much I like my car, I can't imagine buying one of their modern, tech-centric models -- in part because of posts like this one.
2007 Mazdaspeed 3, just keeps going. All buttons, no screens.
2016 Porsche Cayman, one small multifunction screen, display only, no touch. Buttons for the very few “features” present on the car.
2016 Ford Transit Connect. 200k miles. Just goes. One small screen, doesn’t interfere with anything critical.
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.
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.
I’d have agreed with you in the past, but I just bought a new car for the first time. I wanted a compact pickup - there were basically none produced for a decade from 2012-2022 - the ones from before this gap are questionable safety-wise, and now either are falling apart from rust, or going for a hefty premium because there aren’t many enthusiast-maintained rust-free models for sale. The post 2022 ones for sale just don’t have enough of a discount off new models to be worth buying unless.
These were global-maximum designs, it's all downhill from here.
Also, note that this is a base model, with various “enhancements” added later, so it may be lacking certain (all) options.
It has physical buttons for the aircon.
No wifi = no speakers listening to me and selling my personal data (yep that’s a thing)
I have to press a button on the key fob to open it so it can’t be stolen by relaying the signal.
It’s pretty cheap to run because I hardly drive anywhere anyway.
But when I do I just buy this stuff called ‘petrol’ that’s all around the place and takes like 30 seconds.
I also still get to feel smug because the environmental cost of producing a new electric car is WAY greater than the petrol I’m burning.
The environmental cost of producing an electric car happens once. But driving a car is an ongoing environmental insult. This is an apples/oranges comparison unless you integrate the driving damage over time.
This analysis suggests EVs are overall a win for the environment after 5 years of ownership, assuming your electricity comes from coal. If it comes from hydro or renewable sources, it's more like one year.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-d...
So according to that article it’d take 13.5 years of driving an electric car to pay it back.
You let me know an electric car that lasts 13.5 years and I’ll head on down to the dealership.
Otherwise I will wait out the remaining 8.5 years as best I can
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 scrap yards are btw filling up with modern cars quite quickly because people cannot afford to repair new cars, or the cars are uneconomical to repair even after minor collisions. Whereas a lot of old cars (pre-2010) can be fixed on your driveway with easily affordable tools.
Having to press a button on the fob for it to transmit a code key via radio does not mean that the key cannot be captured with an SDR by someone close by.
Only a monotonic code as a part of the key can prevent replay attacks, and only proper encryption can hinder the code from being totally cracked.
Citation very much needed.
Electric cars are still cars, and therefore terrible for the environment, but they do emit significantly less pollution over their lives and require a lot less oil to operate.
I drive about 1000 miles a year. That’s about 250kg of co2 a year.
A new car uses something like 20 tonnes of co2 to make it.
So that’s 80 years of driving for me.
Obviously if I BUY a new car, it’ll be electric (but hopefully someone will have made a dumb electric car by then)
I'm patiently looking to upgrade from my great 2018 subaru forester xt touring, but nothing new seems much better.
They’ve essentially skated by on brand recognition earned decades ago.
After five or six years it spent more time being repaired than not, and I sold it. It was one of the few times where having an extended warranty paid off. Haven't really considered a Volvo since.
Like most new cars, everything is tied into the center display/computer. It will crash while driving, which will remove all sound from your car, and I don't mean just the radio/spotify/whatever. You can be in mid-turn with your turn signal on and then just absolute quiet. It is so off-putting. Your blinker stops, you can't really tell your engine is on, and every screen just goes black. Thankfully I don't have a pure electric, so I my car still physically moves, but I really can't believe I haven't gotten in an accident when my screen crashes.
Thankfully I leased this vehicle, and I'm almost done with it, I honestly can't wait to turn it in.
I’m thinking of turning it in for an updated model, but the updated model has displays instead of actual gauges and indicator lights like the older niro, and that just makes my skin crawl. It should be damn near impossible for the gauges and indicators to blink out of existence, and reassurance about nothing-but-screens has not been forthcoming.
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