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.
> great, reliable cars
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.
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.
I think some provinces have some additional vehicle-specific laws, but no comprehensive "lemon law" as such.
(Still driving my 2012 EV - not a typo - and got a can't-miss off-lease CPO deal on a "new" 2022 this year.)
How do you dig into this responsibly?
I really don't want to be buying a new car right now as the ICE ones all seem to be expensive trash but the EVs are changing so quickly that it isn't worth it.
My Chevy Volt is beginning to show its age, but you will pry it from my cold, dead hands at this point.
Compare to gas cars which is a very mature technology, and really only perks and features get updated.
Sure, other companies are making an effort to catch up with Tesla on autonomous driving, but range/speed/price are largely stagnant.
Mostly, it looks like every company (in the US/EU)is in shambles releasing half baked EVs hoping no one will notice that their hardware company is terrible at software.
The reason is because the insurance companies want you to care about the car as an asset, on the basis that statistically they are driven more carefully (and therefore cause less third party property damage, bodily injury, etc.)
The salesperson looked at me like I was crazy and confirmed it was global (the Y remembers what the proper height is at various locations using the GPS). It's frustrating to me that Teslas have fit and finish issues (though they get better) and there are some parts of it that I think are made cheaply (paint for example), but the software on the Tesla is miles ahead of anything else.
Model Y doesn't have adjustable suspension lol.
What I did not enjoy when I was one was the number of functions that are buttonless and require touchscreen UI. Additionally every 1-2 years they'd do a major version upgrade that moved said functions somewhere around the screen, sometimes into a sub-menu.
So I couldn't do stuff by touch without looking, and they'd periodically break my quick glance muscle memory with releases. Stuff like - adjust air vents, adjust wiper settings, front/rear defrost.
VW software is a monstrosity from everything I've heard.
BMW has struck a decent balance of features, reliability, and having BUTTONS. I also have a HUD in mine and it's nice having instrument cluster display plus HUD to avoid really having to look away from the road at all. The number of cars that require glancing at the central touchscreen for lots of stuff is nuts, and a fad I hope fades away.
I'll check out Rivian next time though, as those look pretty damn good. Like you, I don't know of any other brands that are competitive enough for me. I want to like other car UX's but once you have a smooth UX its hard to go back to sluggish ones.
Rivian is the closest next-best option, but loads of people have complained about bugs in their software.
The base price (USD) is 81K - after clicking on every single option, I managed to bump it to 105K.
I sat in an EX90 demonstrator a year ago at the dealer and was told not to touch anything inside the cabin. The car wasn't ready back then and, from reading owners forums now, it's still not fully baked.
I don’t understand the logic of having each Polestar model running a unique software stack rather than progressively improving one system across all models - but must be a downstream impact of the fractured Geely badges.
That said, Volvo Canada really needs to lift its game and just give the guy a new car already. Hope the bad PR and lawsuit gets Volvo to realise their mistake, apologise and refund him.
Been driving a Polestar 2 for nearly 4 years now and while it’s not a disastrous experience it could be a lot better. Things have improved over the years, but still pretty disappointed.
The infotainment system runs on a very outdated atom chip that’s too slow for Android Automotive. Constant frame drops, crashes or stuff just generally not working.
In a recent software update they disabled the cockpit view if you put it in reverse, just to save on resources.
The whole Android Automotive thing is worthless. There are barely any apps and when they finally released YouTube after 2 years it was just a buggy wrapper around the mobile web view. Most videos will just display a green screen due to lack of codec support, so I just pull out my phone now when I’m charging. But even the radio or Spotify fail to play half of the time.
The 360 degree camera sometimes will just not work. I still have a tiny back window, unlike the Polestar 4, but the reverse lights are so tiny and dim that it’s impossible to see anything when reversing at night.
Digital Key works, but also have to regularly pull out my phone to trigger it or manually press the button in the app. If you’re in a parking garage without internet you’re simply not getting into the car. And that’s without the random logouts.
Lane assist works relatively well, if it weren’t for the constant nagging to put your hands on the wheel even if you’re lightly tugging it. I need to really jerk it a bit before it stops beeping at me, making it completely useless.
Maintenance happens at the Volvo dealership where they made sure to make me feel like a second class citizen for not leasing a Volvo. They didn’t read my reservation mentioning the broken rain sensor, ensuring I had to return a week later for them to replace it because they didn’t have the part in stock.
I was between a model 3 and this car initially. Mainly because of the software, and for that reason I still regret not going for the M3, but given the current situation I’m happier driving the PS2.
Nearly 4 years in the chipset is still the same for the newer model.
Oh I know how to fix this one. Format windows partition and install linux
That made me a solid Volvo buyer (I replaced that car with a newer XC90 T8 - a plug-in hybrid that I still have and is a great vehicle). That said, new versions of any product have issues sometimes but the loss of propulsion on the highway is extremely concerning. Hopefully Volvo comes through and irons this all out like they did for me.
I have a 2010s VW, and I think it has the right amount of software. The screen has CarPlay, radio and some configurations, but 100% of the driving can be done without using it. Things like wipers, AC, cruise control, everything is manual. Yet the car even has the latest safety stuff like lane assist and BLIS.
Is there an EV out there with the same level of software? Can we essentially buy a 2019 Golf with the fuel tank gauge exchanged for a battery level indicator?
I've had the "Complete Center Screen Malfunction" issue on my Polestar 2 (though an infotainment reboot "fixed" it.
But climate controls disappearing and climate shutting off during infotainment reboots is already pretty atrocious.
I have the "backup camera unavailable" issue, and despite multiple recalls and attempts to fix in software... the issue persists.
There are other issues, but none as bad as he's seen with his EX90!
In general, climate shutting off is safety issue too. In -40C it is not many minutes until you can’t see through windows.
Edit: OMG!
Anyone who thinks Tesla's Autopilot/FSD (or any aspect of their software) is bad... much of the competition is far worse.
A few issues:
* Lane keeping gets dangerously close to other cars in turns for no apparent reason * Lane keeping will randomly decide to follow non-existent lanes * You can't turn off lane assist (the baby version of lane keeping) and it tries to override you, leading to jerking of the steering wheel at high speed (eg to avoid an obstacle in the road). * When switching from R to D it wants you to press the brake. But if you are still moving a tiny bit or you don't press the brake hard enough it just shifts you into N instead (!!). I live on a hill and this is only detected when I press the accelerator pedal and nothing happens. But you have to come to a full stop to shift into D (Why???). * Some settings refuse to save to driver profile; to get single pedal driving you must use the paddle shifters each driving session to go from iDrive 3 to Max. But if you are moving too fast it refuses to change the mode. If you set the mode in R it resets when you move to D. * Despite being an EV with key/digital key detection you must manually press the ON button and manually press the Off button. Otherwise when you get out of the car it just sits there ready to be driven away by a thief. * No auto-lock when walking away. * Remember the pedal thing from shifting? Same with pressing ON button. If you don't press the brake pedal down hard enough or give it 1-2 seconds before pressing ON it just turns on accessory mode. * No geofencing so no ability to configure anything to behave differently at home. * Want to control the charge plug locking behavior? Don't bother going to Settings. You won't find it. You must go to the home page, then press the EV Leaf box. Then go to EV Settings from here. There you will find a new settings menu that has the same ones from Settings but it now has a couple of new categories not present with all the other settings of the car. Including whether to lock the charge port door and whether to lock the charge cable into the car itself. * Sometimes in following cruise control mode it just locks in at a speed different from the one you set for no reason. * When you touch the accelerator in cruise it turns cruise off so when you let off the accelerator the car actually jerks you around as it decelerates for a period of time before cruise kicks back in lurching you forward. * Don't press the accelerator for too long or it will just turn cruise control off entirely, including lane keeping. * It wants your hands on the steering wheel but if you move too much it turns off lane keeping but leaves cruise control on. * It has the usual massive plethora of physical buttons randomly scattered throughout the cabin. Some on the center console. Some on the three stalks. Some on the left side where you can't see them. Some below the touch screen. * Different controls behave differently. Sometimes next to each other with similar functions! Opening the rear door? Press and hold. Open the frunk? Double tap the button. The buttons are next to each other. The buttons below the touch screen? Capacitive it seems. Why when the rest are physical? * Despite the cluster being just a huge LCD they do almost nothing with it. The only customizations are for-pay add-ons. * Did I mention the light-up squares on the front are customizable? If you pay for them. Each pattern is an add-on you pay for. * Their app is an absolute disaster. I could do an entire post just about how awful every aspect of it is.
Recently, it's started turning itself on when you get out of the driver seat, and sometimes the power windows decide to operate themselves. I'm guessing it's only going to get worse over time. (There was recently a big software update, and those two issues started after they pushed it out.)
The only one that really drives me nuts is the lane-keeping feature, which cannot even follow clearly marked lanes in broad daylight. I don't know that I've ever had it go for more than 15s without disengaging on its own, and forget following even a gentle curve.
Unpredictable, unreliable and especially unsafe (built like a tank but prone to accidents due to all the random electronic failures and malfunctions)
I don’t think good cars exist anymore. All car software is shit.
That crap won't cut it with EVs.
https://www.gunthervolvocars.net/who-makes-volvo-cars.htm
The Volvo EX90 (in the article) is made in Charleston SC.
https://i.imgur.com/sxPpQIV_d.webp?maxwidth=760&fidelity=gra...
Serious, is there evidence that this is happening an all EX90 models? And what does a lawyer say in such cases? Normally, $90,000 cars are leased. When does the special termination apply?
