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A few miscellaneous review items

6K views 32 replies 14 participants last post by  kenhoeve 
#1 ·
I don't mean to overwhelm with my own viewpoints but I have a few other hobbies that go into far more detail than your typical car mag reviews so I feel compelled. I can't help adding more to the dialogue and hope some will benefit, particularly when just a handful of these cars are out there.

As usual I will start with the bad. I cannot get used to the optics on the side mirrors, they constitute a serious hazard for me and have almost caused two accidents. I subscribe to an urban setup for mirrors. That means I rely on only the center mirror to see what is behind me. I prefer to setup the side mirrors so that when a car has overlapped me to the right or left flank their headlights are directly in my side mirror. The way this usually works is that you get the left mirror and lean your head to the side window and then adjust mirror so that you just barely see your left flank bumper. Repeat this with the right by leaning over the console and setting the right mirror in the same fashion. Then you allow cars from behind to pass you on both sides to calibrate. As the car exits the center mirror, it should simultaneously enter your side mirror and stay visible in that side mirror until it is visible directly at your B pillar. This eliminates the blindspot and works well in crowded traffic. The problem with the 2015 side mirrors is that they have a very wide optic field, so even when you set the mirrors full wide, that car that is overlapping your back door will be nearly invisible (almost entirely at night) and only show up on the BLIS indicator while the mirror shows the car immediately behind it. In my mind this is a built in blindspot. No car I have owned did not allow this setup to work. I understand the BLIS necessity, but I don't like being forced to use the crutch. I prefer to have a more narrow side mirror field. Personally I find it unacceptable. There is no reason for the side mirror to have that wide a field, that is what the center mirror is for.

The adaptive cruise is really excellent. It reacts quicker than you possibly can because the radar is simply better at reacting to gaps. Just keep in mind that the person behind you will not be as quick to react as your car is, particularly if it starts to use some decent braking.

The collision warning system is ok, not perfect. It likes to go off as you overtake cars that are turning in 1/2 dashed turn bays. No big deal. It also tends to go off when you are making close quarters overtaking moves but that is to be expected. Today it also went off for absolutely no reason that I can surmise other than I was in a slow 25mph zone on a curve with parked cars on both sides, there was nothing in front of me, nor any cars in front of me. If I was the only one driving the car, I would probably turn it off.

The stereo is pretty darn good. Shortcomings are obvious (power, sub, etc) so I'll skip those and focus on what's good. First, get the sound field set up how you like it. It is great to have a cabin with a very low noise baseline. What I first notice is that it has excellent dynamic range, there is plenty of detail present that is often lost. The equalization is very well done. Nothing too shrill, nothing digging too deep, it provides a nice balance that makes volume control very consistent. One of the best parts is presence, when the tracks move to wider fields it does an outstanding job of projecting that field and giving dimension to the acoustics. It really is exceptionally clean and I think there are sufficient adjustments to suit different listeners within a wide range of listening.

I have to look into this, but when I remotely start the car it will shut off when I open the door. Don't understand that but will see if there is a setting that needs to be changed.
 
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#2 ·
I believe the sound system may be tuned by Audyssey ... From a file out on the Internet named "Audyssey Product List.xls":

Volvo S60 2011 Volvo S60 sedan with Volvo Premium Sound: 12-loudspeaker system tuned and calibrated by Audyssey MultEQ XT for an absolute world-class audio experience. MultEQ XT

If the 2011 S60 was tuned with that I have to imagine they would continue to use the EQ for the S/V60s of today.
 
#12 ·
I believe the sound system may be tuned by Audyssey ... From a file out on the Internet named "Audyssey Product List.xls":

Volvo S60 2011 Volvo S60 sedan with Volvo Premium Sound: 12-loudspeaker system tuned and calibrated by Audyssey MultEQ XT for an absolute world-class audio experience. MultEQ XT

If the 2011 S60 was tuned with that I have to imagine they would continue to use the EQ for the S/V60s of today.
2015.5 models (which is what you guys have) have actually been acoustically "retuned" by Harmon/Kardon. Apparently, Audyssey's set up wasn't as well liked as previous Volvo Premium Sound Systems from Dynaudio (2008-2010 I believe) or Harmon/Kardon (2004-2007 I think).
 
#3 · (Edited)
I have to look into this, but when I remotely start the car it will shut off when I open the door. Don't understand that but will see if there is a setting that needs to be changed.
From the owners manual this is the expected behavior:

Engine Remote Start (ERS)* - switching off the engine
Any of the following will switch off the engine if it has been started with ERS:
• Pressing the lock button (1) or the unlock button (2) on the remote key
• Unlocking the vehicle
• Opening a door
• Depressing the accelerator or brake pedal
• Moving the gear selector from the P position
• If there are less than approx. 2.5 gallons (10 liters) of fuel in the tank
• More than 15 minutes have elapsed.
If the engine has been started with ERS and switches off, the turn signals will illuminate for 3 seconds.


I have only found the last setting (remote start duration from 1 to 15 mins) can be changed with the Volvo on Call app.

I agree some of these conditions are dumb. My Compustar remote start will keep my 850 running when I remote start it, unlock it, open the door, insert the key and switch it to position II, depress the brake pedal, move the gear selector from the P position, and drive the car. If I don't switch the ignition to position II before depressing the brake pedal then my Compustar will stop the engine.

Volvo needs feedback to improve this ERS feature.
 
#7 ·
From the owners manual this is the expected behavior:

Engine Remote Start (ERS)* - switching off the engine
Any of the following will switch off the engine if it has been started with ERS:
• [snip]...
They could have saved a lot of time by just saying ...

- Anything
- Even looking at it

:p
 
#6 ·
...As the car exits the center mirror, it should simultaneously enter your side mirror and stay visible in that side mirror until it is visible directly at your B pillar. This eliminates the blindspot and works well in crowded traffic. The problem with the 2015 side mirrors is that they have a very wide optic field, so even when you set the mirrors full wide, that car that is overlapping your back door will be nearly invisible (almost entirely at night)
I was following right up to this point. If the field of view is wide, you would have a larger area for overlap of the mirrors. Narrower would be worse, right? Maybe a typo? Of course, I can never trust mirrors at night, even if I look over my shoulder I'm not always 100% sure of what I'm seeing.

...No car I have owned did not allow this setup to work.
Agree completely.

...I prefer to have a more narrow side mirror field.
Again, not making sense to me.
 
#8 ·
I was following right up to this point. If the field of view is wide, you would have a larger area for overlap of the mirrors. Narrower would be worse, right? Maybe a typo? Of course, I can never trust mirrors at night, even if I look over my shoulder I'm not always 100% sure of what I'm seeing.

Agree completely.

Again, not making sense to me.
yeah messed that up. just reverse them. narrow with wide. i was thinking backwards.
 
#9 ·
regarding the uadio

after only a few miles of listening to SXM classical and not having adjusted the sound field i find the audio to be disappointing. thus far the stock sound system in the r was superior to the anemic and somewhat shrill system in the star. i will be playing with what set up capability it has, see what i can find. voices do sound pretty natural, so i'm hoping for better listening ahead.
 
#11 ·
after only a few miles of listening to SXM classical and not having adjusted the sound field i find the audio to be disappointing. thus far the stock sound system in the r was superior to the anemic and somewhat shrill system in the star. i will be playing with what set up capability it has, see what i can find. voices do sound pretty natural, so i'm hoping for better listening ahead.
This is crazy. The R has good speakers but eveyone knows the EQ is garbage. To compare a custom tuned EQ setting to that... well if you think the R sounds good count yourself lucky.
 
#10 ·
to clarify, it is a wide viewing field but that means it has to be narrow optically, which is how a car can be invisible at close range.
 
#16 ·
I've found SiriusXM to be a pretty poor source, and one that varies in quality day to day, though definitely convenient. Could be very frustrating trying to tune it perfectly. Throw in a CD or stream BT and it sounds 100% better and quality is consistent.
 
#17 ·
And satellite radio music is so compressed, it's lack of fidelity cannot be compared to CDs, FM or HD.
 
#20 · (Edited)
Non HD radio FM is analog. Doesn't mean to imply quality is all that ... multitudes of ways fidelity is reduced in FM encoding and decoding. But with the right demodulator can be quite good. Just saying.

Satellite radio is like 48K - 56K quality. I have a friend who worked for Sirrus in QA for a few years. He'd give me their secret "password of the month" I could use to stream their -exact- bit stream sent to the satellites, over the internet; no down-sampling. The bitstream was what I just cited.
 
#22 ·
I'm at 14.7 MPG at 584 miles. Better than the 13.5 I started at.
 
#25 ·
You can't really judge it until there are many thousands of miles on the odo.
 
#26 ·
More miscellaneous items. Normally I would read the owner's manual, but for some reason with this car I get a kick out of the little things I discover just driving.

Auto dimming of high beams. Yes, the car will detect both vehicles in front and oncoming and dim the brights as appropriate and put them back on. Maybe not a big deal but I find it incredibly useful, and as usual, quite a surprise.
 
#27 ·
Dynamic headlights. Not a new technology by any means and we have them on a couple other cars. This system is better, much better. First off, it is far quicker. Second, it has a wider angular range. Sometimes I swear it will telegraph your next steering input if you watch it. The beams are graduated, giving more distance in line of travel, shorter at the sides. The corner spotlight, very cool. For sharper turns it provides a nice burst of light at about 90°, then fades out. Love that. An excellent system that beats the competition (bmw) easily.
 
#28 ·
My father's 1956 Caddy Eldorado had auto dim high beams
This is not new.....
 
#32 ·
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