[Raosaheb Desai]

Congratulations for the Swedish missile !!!!

Its pity that Volvo discontinued T6 model in India.
With updated 8 speed box it would have been great alternative to powerful Germans.

[jfxavier]

Completed the road trip yesterday.
The route was as below.
Kollam - Bangalore - Mumbai - Pune - Vizag - Kolkata - Puri - Hyderabad - Kollam.

Roads were good with comments as below on the foll. sections.
Kerala NH - No dual carriageways.
Kerala/TN Border roads - Craters/ pot holes.
Bangalore city - Lots of constructions. Craters & badly made speed breakers.
Satara to Pune - Lots of diversions.
Solapur to Hyderabad - No dual carriageways. Potholes & patchy roads.
Orissa/ WB border roads - Sections completed & jointed by very bad patches/ non existent roads.

Best road:
Hyderabad - Bangalore.
Worst city roads:
Bangalore.

Had good experiences on the road everywhere.
Found the AP traffic to be the most unpredictable.
Saw two accidents on the road & both in the Orissa/ WB border roads.

Accomodation:
Pleasantly surprised/ Happy about:
Park Plaza, Kolkata.
Green Park, Vizag.
Nera Regency, Hyderabad.

Below expectation/ Not so happy about:
Sterling Golden Sands, Puri.
Celebrations, Vashi.

[jfxavier]

Many people have asked me about the lane departure warning of the Volvo and here is my observation.
The system is capable of picking up even the faint markings sometimes found on our roads, just like the one in the picture below.
An alarm is sounded whenever the front wheels (left or right) crosses any of the lane markings.
Sometimes, it becomes a PITA when we are overwhelmed with the undisciplined traffic that we encounter on our roads, especially in the crowded roads.
Thankfully there is a button for switching it off if required, and I turn it off sometimes in cities. Otherwise I personally find the feature a good thing and tend to keep it on during the highway trips.

[jfxavier]

Polestar ECU remap
This is one upgrade that I had to get done.
Since its a mild ECU remap compared to some of the extreme tuning options available aftermarket, I went for it. I knew that I will drive this car long distance and didn't want any reliability issues. A bump up by a modest 25hp was enough for me.
I must say that the driving experience does improve further with the ECU upgrade. Not that the car was a pain to drag around before.

[Contrapunto]

jfxavier , what has been the service and spares costs that you have experienced. Can you please detail them? Did you face any issues with parts availability?

[jfxavier]

The last service I got done was the 40k one. Paid almost 25k for it.
Parts availability not bad for the usual ones, but if you need some out of the usual stuff you might have to wait a few weeks.
I think every other service costs only half of the amount. There are more consumables being renewed every second service.

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by Contrapunto

jfxavier , what has been the service and spares costs that you have experienced. Can you please detail them? Did you face any issues with parts availability?

In case you decide to get a Volvo, please do PM me your whatsapp number. We have a whatsapp group, albeit a small one going there.

[avinash_clt]

Congrats for acquiring this brilliant piece of Swedish engineering. And even more happy to know that its taken for those long drives, exactly what these cars are meant to. From what I've seen here, Volvos age much better than the big German trio and are also much lesser expensive to maintain in the long run.

Wishing you a niggle free ownership and many more miles.

[roby.thomas]

Congratulations !

Originally Posted by jfxavier

I liked the option to set the rear view mirror to tilt downwards while reversing. I preferred only tilting the passenger side ORVM & not the driver side one.

I was a lot excited when I got an electrically adjustable & foldable mirros in my car. This Volvo feature takes it to a whole new level. This is something I do on a regular basis, just not to fall into that uncovered drainage, or judge the spacing on left for the door to open and not to hit the rising edge of a slab. Are there other cars which do this function ? The attention to the safe driving aids that Volvo provides is probably the best. But I wonder then why a reversing camera wasn't provided. Did Volvo feel that's a lot distracting than of actual help, and are there other equipments that help you let reverse safely than just parking sensors ?

[avinash_clt]

Originally Posted by roby.thomas

This Volvo feature takes it to a whole new level. This is something I do on a regular basis, just not to fall into that uncovered drainage, or judge the spacing on left for the door to open and not to hit the rising edge of a slab. Are there other cars which do this function ?

The Skoda Laura had this feature (mirrors changing position while reversing), though I am not sure in which variants. It works in combination with another handy feature, where when you adjust one mirror the other mirror also moves accordingly.

Cheers,
Avinash

[sandeep108]

The 3 (and probably 5, etc.) series also has the option of the passenger mirror tilting downward when shifted to reverse for parking. I am sure Merc and Audi would also have the same feature.

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by roby.thomas

The attention to the safe driving aids that Volvo provides is probably the best. But I wonder then why a reversing camera wasn't provided. Did Volvo feel that's a lot distracting than of actual help, and are there other equipments that help you let reverse safely than just parking sensors ?

Originally Posted by avinash_clt

The Skoda Laura had this feature (mirrors changing position while reversing), though I am not sure in which variants. It works in combination with another handy feature, where when you adjust one mirror the other mirror also moves accordingly.

Originally Posted by sandeep108

The 3 (and probably 5, etc.) series also has the option of the passenger mirror tilting downward when shifted to reverse for parking. I am sure Merc and Audi would also have the same feature.

I am sure that many makers' are providing similar facilities.
Volvo's attention to details is second to none.
The multitude of options in the "my car" menu shows that. I will give a couple of examples.
The S60 rearview mirrors are marked in two halves, the outer section is shaped for wide angle/ far view whereas the section closer to the driver is without much distortion of image.
The angle/ position of the door mirrors and driver's seat are stored in the remote key memory. The car comes with multiple remote keys (for different drivers - husband and wife for eg.) and the positions can be recalled from the key that you use for unlocking so that you are comfortable with the setting right away.
The 3 nos. seat memories are independent to these keys' settings.
The choice of whether or not to automatically tilt the left/right or both mirrors when the reverse is engaged can be made using the car settings.

The rear view camera is installed in such an angle as to show the rear tow bar as well (if you decide to tow a trailer for eg.). One press of the camera button on the console will zoom the camera to the tow bar. In zoomed conditions if you like to see the intended path of the tow bar to the trailer (similar to park assist lines) that can be selected using the car settings as well.
In the normal view, the park assist lines superimposed on the image on the screen shows three lines in three diff. colour/ format. First one showing the physical boundary of the car up to 30 cm behind the bumper. Second one showing the intended path of the car approx. 1.5 mtrs behind taking into account rear view mirrors etc. and the third one showing the wheel tracks upto 3.2 mtrs. from the bumper. The lines will change as per the steering input from the driver to show the intended path of the car/ wheels.
The software for managing the camera view is impressive.

I even got the front camera installed to have a look around the blind corners.
The image from the front camera (Have not seen many car makers providing that one) is a 180 deg field of view split into two sides & corrected for distortion caused by the "fish eye" lens.

There are 4 nos. sensors each in the back & front. In case any of the parking sensors getting triggered the respective location will be shown as a translucent block superimposed on the relevant area in the picture, the size/colour of which will change from orange to red & sound from intermittent to continuous depending on the distance to the obstacle. The sound for the front and rear sensors are different and the the sound for rear sensors come from the rear speakers of the car stereo and the front parking sensors audio warning come from the front speakers of the car stereo. Not to say that the volume for the music that you are playing will be automatically reduced when the sensor gets triggered only. The volume of the alarm for the sensors can be set separately as well.

[sandeep108]

Most if not all of these features are there in the german trios as well as even some Passat models.

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by sandeep108

Most if not all of these features are there in the german trios as well as even some Passat models.

Which models offer the front camera? I don't remember seeing one elsewhere.

[sandeep108]

I did say most. In many markets, BMW/Audi/Merc offer the front cameras as well. The Merc ML350 has more than 3-4 cameras including top down. The Passat even parks itself using the auto park feature, you just have to set it in that mode and move slowly near vacant spots, it sense which one it will fit in and park itself in there, all without human intervention.

And if a car can park itself in fairly tight spots on its own today, I think I know where Google is going with driverless cars.