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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 t
by eckelhesten 1y ago
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.
- kazinator 1y agoNo longer, as of when? I had a 1987 Volvo 760 in the nineties. It was an unmitigated piece of shit.
- bestouff 1y agoI want to buy European but Bosh is so disappointing. They lock everything so you can't change anything on your EV by yourself. I hate that.
- fuzzy2 1y agoReliable (consistent) quality, yes. Quality? Debatable. But it definitely keeps driving, no dangerous situations so far.
- Xenoamorphous 1y agoAren’t Japanese cars the gold standard of reliability? Or has something changed?
- AlexandrB 1y agoI don't know about the others, but Toyota has had some issues recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klyb2VrACZc&t=47s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klyb2VrACZc&t=47s
- quink 1y agoNew cars... but a 22 year old used Toyota, like mine, seems perfectly fine. Sure, it'll kill me because of the comparative lack of safety, but that seems like a minor sacrifice in the face of needing to deal with a new car. It also doesn't have pillars the thickness of an elephant's legs, like all new cars, significantly less compromising to visibility all around. It also lacks the now ubiquitous square and raised bonnet.
- onecommentman 1y agoIf you are of a certain age, have the ready cash and if new cars are truly safer than old cars, then do society a favor and buy the new car. It’s cheaper for society to make a new car that keeps the aging driver, passengers and other drivers and pedestrians safe, than to pay to fix even one broken old person. I’ve got a 2025 sedan with all the newest safety features, and what you lose in visibility you more than gain in general situational awareness, especially with aging eyes, ears, etc.. Managing display and alarm complexities is the challenge, though, since the aging population also have issues there. A driving training simulator at the dealership for these new sedans for the elderly would be a big help, since many of the safety options are only active in a vehicle under motion. The temptation for the aged is just to shut these confusing options off as too complex, thus losing the safety advantage.
- jorvi 1y agoTo 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.
- api 1y agoI have a 2022 model Leaf, the one with 230 miles range, and it's... boring in a good way. It just works. Zero problems whatsoever and zero noticeable battery degradation after about 27K miles. Only big downside is poor rapid charging, but we use ours as a city car and rarely if ever need it. Put a CCS fast charge port and better battery cooling in this thing and it'd be the perfect boring reliable EV with physical dash controls (no touch screen BS).
- silverquiet 1y agoMy girlfriend has the same car and I had about the same feeling in it - it's just a cheap Nissan that happens to be electric (and I mean that in a good way). As you said, quite good as a city car, and we even did a short road trip in it, but the lack of chargers for it does produce some range anxiety.
- cptskippy 1y agoThat's been my experience with a 2015 Leaf. It's ugly and the range is trash, and that it. It's a dolled up golf cart but in a good way.
- esseph 1y agoI want my tools to be boring, do something and do it well, and with minimum fuss.
- coderenegade 1y agoNissan makes fantastic cars that develop a following, and then proceeds to change everything about the car that created a following in the first place. Mitsubishi seem to be learning this skill from them. Toyota still sells cars that have a direct lineage to the original model 40 years ago, and charges a fortune for them.
- caconym_ 1y agoNot 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.
- everybodyknows 1y agoWas 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.
- nothercastle 1y agoNah only Subaru and nisssan. 10 speed automatics are most common.
- Marsymars 1y agoMost Japanese manufacturers are moving pretty heavily to CVTs. (And Americans have a smattering of them across their lines.)
- Marsymars 1y agoNote that the eCVT that Toyota/Ford (and soon Mazda) use in their hybrids is mechanically entirely different from classic CVTs.
- vel0city 1y agoNote that not all Ford hybrids are eCVTs. Hybrid Explorers don't have eCVTs, for example. But Mavericks and some of their newer hybrids are eCVTs.
- elabajaba 1y agoE-CVTs are extremely reliable and are different from CVTs (CVTs use a belt attached to 2 cones, E-CVTs are just a single planetary gear set), but a lot of car guys and even some mechanics don't realize they're completely different.
- orloffm 1y agoSubarus have chain-based CVTs which are presumably better than usual belt-based ones.
- worik 1y agoNot since cars went electric....
- blueflow 1y ago> .... 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).
- nicce 1y agoWhat reliable is left?
- hnuser123456 1y agoToyota
- tannhaeuser 1y agoIf you buy a Toyota ProAce van you get a Peugeot Expert aka Citroen Jumpy/Traveller aka the respective Fiat and Opel (and Vauxhall?) branded vehicles. It's a Volkswagen Transporter-sized van, not an Eurovan/minivan that still might be sold in EU only though.
- earthnail 1y agoBMW
- rectang 1y agoDon't say "reliable", say "opportunity for enshittification".
- DyslexicAtheist 1y agoif it has software it will be enshitted. sadly true
- rectang 1y agoI was a bit surprised to see the the "software" criteria in your reply, as I'd always thought of enshittification's inevitability as a capitalist phenomenon whereby a quality brand is wrung out for near term gains by management incentivized to get their cut before riding off into the sunset. But after reading up a bit, I've found that software platform lock-in was important in enshittification's original formulation — it's not just that quality goes to crap, but that users have nowhere else to go.
- denysvitali 1y ago> Buy German cars 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
- cpursley 1y agoFrom their already dismal reliability and insane maintenance costs?
- daedrdev 1y agoNot 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
- thesz 1y ago> great, reliable cars 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.
- maxglute 1y ago> quality of ride Is this year 2000? Chinese cars are overwhelmingly tuned for much softer ride experience at expense of feeling performance / sporty. Especially 50k+ tier from last few years, most perform better than Euro cars in terms of noise, vibration harshness. You generally have to scrape to bottom barrel entry level 10-15k PRC cars to get bad ride experiences now. Chinese roads also great now, down to rural. Quality's caught up since 2020s. Sure you can wait 10 years, but there's industry indicators like problems per 100 vehicles (PP100) where PRC EVs are fine / better than foreign bands (built in PRC factories. At least mechanically (power trains, batteries, chassis). Most PRC weakeness comes from stuff like infotainment, drive assist last few years because they've been iterating software a little too fast. There's also proprietary fleet data on EV taxis / rideshare that's been driven to death, and those hold up fine too. Rolls Royce tuned their PRC cars to be EXTRA PLUSH, because PRC buyers prefers extra cloudy rides vs Euro buyers that prefers firmer / responsive, NA softer than EU, MENA somewhere between EU/NA.
- breadwinner 1y agoI 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. [1] https://www.electrive.com/2025/06/25/automotive-industry-launches-alliance-for-software-development/ https://www.electrive.com/2025/06/25/automotive-industry-lau...
- AlexandrB 1y agoSoftware 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.
- ryandrake 1y agoPhysical goods companies just don't get software, and they never seem to be able to do it right. They treat firmware and software like just another line item on the BOM. Like a screw or a silicon gasket: Source it from a cheap supplier, spoon it into the product somewhere on the assembly line, and then never touch it again. As long as it meets a list of checkbox requirements, the quality doesn't matter at all. A car company that obsesses over how nicely the exterior panels fit together will, on the other hand, not even care whether icons and text are aligned on their software.
- FredPret 1y agoThe other day I saw a meat thermometer with no readout, only an app. No! A good app is more expensive than a good thermometer readout, and will break much sooner. I'll pay a premium for no-tech products.
- nunez 1y agoYup. Case in point: any time the rear view camera comes on in a car commercial. Beatufiul car, awesome interior...potato-quality backup camera.
- cpursley 1y agoOr 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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvnZ0mTCBng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvnZ0mTCBng
- meepmorp 1y agoInterestingly, Zeeker is owned by the same Chinese parent company as Volvo, Geely auto.
- cpursley 1y agoYeah, might as well get the real thing. That model has great reviews. Wish it were available in the US.
- butlike 1y agoThat 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.
- cpursley 1y agoYeah, that's my biggest gripe with the Chinese stuff and why I would not buy one yet. Fwiw, they seem to be reintroduction physical controls in some models (so they are learning).
- DyslexicAtheist 1y ago> Volvo sadly no longer stands for Swedish quality and safety. which Swedish or EU companies do? not a trick question - I'm genuinely baffled by systematic QA neglect in most EU based companies (which are still better than much US companies) .
- poly2it 1y agoThe digital situation is different. See Mullvad, Inleed or Hetzner.
- vinni2 1y agoIsn’t it Chinese owned now?
- jonplackett 1y agoI’m already boycotting VW for emissions-fraud, Tesla for Nazi-salutes… gonna run out of car brands at this rate
- tcshit 1y agoi 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...
- tasty_freeze 1y agoPlease, post links to videos of those, not still frames. I've seen much shorter and punchier rebuttals to this claim, but this is what I found just now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXeG_mmXZGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXeG_mmXZGE
- ivewonyoung 1y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55MtlRBXwU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55MtlRBXwU0
- tasty_freeze 1y agoMusk slapped his chest and quickly snapped his arm straight. Booker gently reached out, does a little dip, crosses both hands across his chest. But, ok, there are some similarities. Where are the other "loads of videos of your favorite blue colored ones doing the same salute?"
- jamiek88 1y agoLink one.
- ivewonyoung 1y agoOne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55MtlRBXwU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55MtlRBXwU0
- jay_kyburz 1y agoDid we forget about the emissions cheating already? Volkswagen is on my blacklist.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoYikes. Know any recent successful EVs from them?
- NegativeLatency 1y agoIf I was buying new, I'd look for a Japanese car (Toyota, Honda, Subaru). The old volvo 240s are still around though.
- ricardobeat 1y agoI 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.
- ricardobeat 1y agoThis 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.
- seanhunter 1y agoI 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.
- seanhunter 1y agoIt’s actually better than I thought. No fatalities recorded in the UK sincevlaunch in 2004 to at least 2018. https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volvo/xc90/103233/no-fatalities-ever-recorded-in-a-volvo-xc90-in-the-uk https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volvo/xc90/103233/no-fatalitie... 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.
- jwr 1y ago> Buy German cars VW ID.4 owner here. The car is pretty good mechanically, but the software is garbage, or more specifically hot dumpster fire.
- lycopodiopsida 1y agoID.7 owner here. Car is good, software is good. Window buttons are questionable.
- jwr 1y ago> Window buttons are questionable How questionable? In my ID.4 pressing both buttons with windows half-open will sometimes close both windows and sometimes one window will go up and the other down. Does that qualify as "questionable"? :-) > software is good You mean your parking cameras always turn on when needed and you don't get a black screen where the camera image should be about 30% of the time? Can the car recognize two drivers by keyfob and not mix up their settings? Does it not prompt you to "log in" (confirm the driver) every time you start it? Is anything except the background color tied to the whole login thing (like, for example, seat settings)? My bar is pretty low here after the ID.4 hot garbage software.
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoFormer Audi owner. Please don’t buy them. Not reliable at all.
- raisedbyninjas 1y agoUS News and world report ranks VW last in reliability.
- outworlder 1y ago> 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.
- 404mm 1y agoI 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.
- wenc 1y ago> 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.
- eckelhesten 1y agoQuality 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.
- hnarn 1y ago> And I’m saying this as a Swede. Buy German cars And I'm saying _this_ as a Swede, because apparently it matters: what cars are most reliable is publicly available information, and they're all from Asia. My personal favorite is Toyota.
- eckelhesten 1y agoI 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.
- hnarn 1y agoI'm not, and just saying that "Mazdas and Toyotas tend to rust" is an extreme generalization (of which you provide no source).
- eckelhesten 1y agoIt’s a well known fact if you’re remotely interested in cars. Mazda has supposedly upped their game lately regarding rust, but they and other Japanese brands are still regarded inferior to Volvo/german cars in terms of falling apart to rust in our Nordic climate. You can use car.info to if you want to dig further on this (statistik på skrotade bilar). Or just ask your favorite LLM. You don’t have to take my word for it. Japan doesn’t salt their roads nearly as much as we do.
- ablation 1y agoI 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. Avoid like the absolute plague.
- ReDeiPirati 1y ago> 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.
- culopatin 1y agoWell that’s why they didn’t mention BMW lol
- gessha 1y agoIn 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.