Apologies in advance for such a newbie question. We have a deposit down on a 23 XC60 hybrid and it's due in any day, which we are excited about ... but now I am reading about people having problems with the 2022 models, especially regarding the Google interface and just general issues with finding the car unresponsive. Should we be concerned about this? Have the issues been corrected for the 2023 model year?

Any opinions greatly appreciated. This is a car we will rely on for longer journeys. Friends with Volvos have found them to be wonderful cars and very reliable, but they are generally older than the new generation.

 

Keep in mind, most people only join car forums to 1) research prices and 2) find a solution to a problem.......so it could sound like there are plenty of issues. Was similar when i bought my 2019 T8

 

That's a fair point, thanks ... what concerned me were numerous poor reviews on Edmunds and a rating of 2.5 stars compared to the pre-Google versions. Still pondering ...

 

My newbie perspective. Can’t speak for anyone else’s experience, and you’ll probably love the car. Drives beautifully, very impressive. Fun to drive. Looks great. Hopefully the 2023’s address some 2022 issues. We bought a 2022 XC60 Recharge ER R-design in May, our first Volvo and first electric car. But it broke the first month (starting intermittently, electric plug wouldn’t unplug, car wouldn’t lock, wouldn’t reboot). Dealer fixed it in one day with a software fix. He said the car had so much technology that maybe the Volvo engineers had gotten a little ahead of themselves (not great to hear). Car’s worked fine since (driven only electric, which is fun), but I’ve owned lots of new cars (I’m 71) and none have broken in the first month. It feels like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Especially since joining these forums and getting daily emails describing a host of different problems. Not confidence building. Then again, as pointed out, people not experiencing problems probably are not posting to forums so likely the vast majority of these cars are doing fine (my guess). We’re taking a 2000 mile round trip to see grandkids, and I can’t help but wonder how it will do. Never had that with any prior new car. It did great on an inaugural 1500 mile trip before it broke (thankfully after we got home). Would I buy it again? Probably not, at least with the $$ accessories we got. We had waited almost a year for new car inventories to increase (they did not), needed a second car, wanted a PHEV, the $7500 tax credit, and something high end we could enjoy for years. The only PHEVs we saw were either inordinately expensive, or not available without ridiculous markups. Stopped by our closest Volvo dealer one day just to look and lo and behold, they had one coming within two weeks (last one for the year). Love the PHEV feature which we need also vs. EV for road trips. More expensive than I wanted ($70,000) with the $1000 20” wheels (tried to swap with regular, dealer said no) and $3200 B&W speakers (absolute waste to me, we listen to news, sports or audio books mostly). But we bought the car that day. I’m not happy with the operational uncertainty or various aspects/shortfalls of the infotainment that I didn’t expect (my 2015 Mercedes ML diesel infotainment is far more user friendly). I don’t like no written owners manual with all the new technology (the online manual sucks but I’m old school). I don’t like needing premium fuel and mileage isn’t impressive for a hybrid (my 8 year old diesel’s better, and yes, I was aware of that). There is a unexpected design flaw with dirt coming in the rear doors. So, do I have a little buyer’s remorse…yes, at least at our purchase price (I know, I could have said no), or until the infotainment is improved and the car operates trouble free for the next several years. Sorry, but I’d caution anyone getting this vehicle, although what bothers me might be overblown to others. Don’t know if this helps your decision, but good luck.

 

The digital owner's manual is a joke and totally inadequate when you need information. I may be old school as well, but there is no excuse for the abbreviated digital manual for this vehicle.

 

Totally agree. I tried to get a 2021 printed manual hoping it would help. The last year with a print version. Was originally told it would cost me $100 (after buying a $70,000 car!). Told my dealer they should get me one “on the house”. They agreed but then said they looked and couldn’t find one. They’re out of print. It’s a beautiful car but Volvo has dropped the ball on a number of things I never anticipated.

 

I've had my late-2022 T8 recharge for a few weeks now. It's done 2500km (1550 miles}. As far as I can see it's exactly the same as 2023 T8 model (except the heated steering wheel isn't standard on mine). You can read my thoughts on the AAOS based infotainment system in another post I made today, but suffice to say, it's not horrible but it's still somewhat buggy and lacking features that google maps on my phone has. Apart from that, the car has been a pleasure. 100% reliable (those glitches mentioned by a previous poster above were fixed by the time my model came out), smooth, quiet (even on 21" wheels with low profile Pirelli P-Zero tyres). Seats are excellent, all the whizbang stuff (360° camera, rain sensing wipers, auto headlight led dimming rather than fully dipping, preheat, air suspension, self driving (for 45 seconds) just works perfectly. My electric range is 60-65km (37-40 miles) which is fine and the engine rarely starts around town. In the first 2000km (which included several long country drives at 100kph - 60mph ) I put 70l of petrol in it. As for the electronic manual, I always access it through the Volvo app and I'm very happy with it because it has a search function and everything I've ever needed to look up has been very easy to find. I also (still!) work in IT so perhaps I'm more inclined to use an electronic manual rather than a paper one. Yes I noticed how the dirt builds up on the inside of the rear doors after my first venture out in Australian winter weather - have never had that on any car before in my life, but it's an annoyance not a deal breaker imo. I think the features in the Volvo app are limited, compared to other premium cars but this will probably improve as the AAOS systems gets more updates. So am I happy? I bought a computer on wheels so I was prepared for a few glitches and honestly it's been better than I expected. The driving experience is better than I expected, in respect of comfort & handling and the amount of power available is really quite surprising. I listen to a wide range of music on iHeart and Spotify and the sound system is just superb. So, it's early days but so far I'm very happy with my car. Hope this helps with anyone considering buying.

 

I am a young buck and I totally agree that the electronic owners manual absolutely sucks

 

I guess this issue is still present in the 2023 MY. Any aftermarket remedy available?

 

I saw a thread showing how to fix the rear door dirt problem. I haven’t tried this yet but am planning to. If I remember correctly, I think it is even a Volvo part - it said it costs about $50 to fix both doors. There is a YouTube video showing how to do it. Do a search for “2022 XC60 design flaw”. That has the video. It is in the Volvo Recharge forum.

 

The main problems with the 2022 Volvos (not just the XC60 "Recharge" models) have to do with the Google OS software, with a possible problem relating to leakage getting into the shark antenna on the roof (TCAM). The 12-volt battery problem is something that can perhaps be solved via software, and hopefully Volvo has been working on that. I've not had a 12-volt battery problem in the two months and 2000 miles of my 2022 XC60 T8 ER ownership. But I have had the Google Maps freeze up twice, temporarily (not more than a minute or so); I've had the air conditioning stop working on a very hot day (resolved by re-booting the infotainment OS system using the button at bottom of the screen); and I've had recurrent, random jerky steering wheel issues on highways at faster speeds, in which I always keep the steering-wheel/lane-keeping assist turned off (i.e., for a few seconds, the car randomly acts like I have the steering/lane-keep assist turned on, and then it stops again).

So lots of software glitches. But my vehicle has not refused to start, or lock/unlock, despite driving it nearly daily for 2-4 weeks in electric-only mode (i.e., the ICE never coming on for weeks at a time). I'd read a lot about these 2022 problems in the months before my special-order XC60 T8 ER arrived in early June, and I took a couple of weeks to decide on whether to buy it or not. But the drive train is the best drive train that I've ever seen in a Volvo (unlike the pre-ER 2022 T8 drivetrain, which is about the worst I've ever seen in a Volvo, having test-driven numerous of those crappy XC60 T8s and which I'd never consider buying).

So I bought my car "eyes wide open", with no illusions that it would be perfect. But it has been nearly perfect, and a 420-mile roundtrip multi-state road trip this past weekend was flawless, and I was able to drive the 420 miles at an average of 55 mph through the 7.5 hours of driving at a (computer-calculated) gas consumption of 30 mpg. I always drive my PHEVs on highway road trips in Hybrid/Hold mode, and then revert to electric-only for slow driving in stop-and-go and city traffic (< 45 mph), which is how PHEVs are best used (this is my third PHEV, the other two being non-Volvos). What was neat was being able to drive the entire 420-mile trip on a single tank of gas; I love the 19-gallon gas tank! The computer said was was getting 26 mpg on a 2-hour stretch of driving at average speed 72 mph; the entire trip involved about 28 miles in all-electric mode, and I ended up with close to 30 mpg for the entire 420 miles. But nowhere near the 35 mpg that some people claim -- but then again, I'm a fast driver.

I upgraded a week ago to version 2.2 of the software, with some trepidation, but it's worked fine so far, and I used CarPlay's version of Google Maps instead of the car's version, because CarPlay's is better-looking and easier to see at a glance than the built-in version (larger road lines, better coloring of traffic flow, etc.).
Lots of annoyances with the very limited instrument panel, but the car looks good (ignoring that horrible lack of buttons/***** and the horrible piano black buttons), is comfortable, is stable at high speeds, has great (9-inch) ground clearance, has great observability out the windows (including rear window), and has a great drive train and power (465 hp, 523 lb-ft of torque is insane). It's fun to drive -- which surprises me as a 3-time Porsche owner. I'm glad I bought it -- as long as it doesn't die on me. I also do long roadtrips every few months, so reliability is key to me because I'm often far away from Volvo dealerships in remote national parks, etc.

 

Hi all, new to this forum. I have been shopping for a PHEV (mostly looking at RAV4 Prime, NX450h+ but can't get a hold of them), and just found out that with the ER models, the Volvo XC60 and XC90 ER are viable options too. Went to test drive a XC90 and XC60, and love the driving experience, comfort and minimalist design of the interior. I am seriously considering buying the XC60 on the lot (will likely need to act soon before it's sold as it has the colors and packages we want), and have been reading owner experiences on this and the SwedSpeed forum.

Like most people, reliability is a very important criteria. I am wondering with the 2023 model and recent updates (e.g. software), are people still experiencing some of the issues reported, such as 12V battery dead, key fob not working, TCAM leak etc. As much I like the car so far, I would really want to avoid dealing with some of these issues.

Would really appreciate any recent owner experiences, such as the ones posted above by cometguy, ozgreg, chg1951.

 

Just returned from the 2000 mile trip I referenced above. Car performed flawlessly. I’ll also add we had left it unplugged in our garage with a full charge for the prior two weeks. It started no problem. Mileage is still mediocre for the gas hybrid driving. We did have two “glitches”: (1) while driving I decided to look at car status to check the tires. No reason, just wanted to check. All tires had green check marks but the “summary” green check had a notification symbol instead which then showed the SOS feature was not working and to bring it in for service. We didn’t need the SOS (fortunately) so aside from being annoyed that this was the “next” glitch we’d have to get fixed, what bothered me was if I had not decided per chance to look at the tire pressure I would not have known there was this problem. No message automatically came up on any screen that a problem had occurred so you’d have no way of knowing you did not have SOS until you actually needed it. However, when we got in the car the next day to finish our drive, the notification did not show up on the check tire pressure screen. I’ve meant to push the SOS button to see if I get any communication but have not yet. (2) we were heading East on I-80, with another 300 miles of I-80 to go, and Google navigation said to head north on I-35 which was obviously wrong. I only had the nav on to see about what time we’d get home so I knew I wasn’t going on I-35, but after we passed that interchange, the system seemed to freeze. We were well past I-35 and it was still saying turn on I-35. I stopped navigation and restarted and it was fine. One other surprise for me was how uncomfortable the drivers seat became the second day of driving. I’d never noticed it before and never read about anyone complaining, but the seat is so fitted along your hips that it began irritating my hips and butt and I was constantly squirming. I’m not a huge guy (6’, 150 lbs.) so now I wonder how bigger people might feel on an extended drive of 8+ hours. So to solve this “problem” on my $70,000 car, I bought a $12 bar stool cushion on Amazon. Worked like a charm! Last, I noticed that Volvo finally put an entire “real” owners manual online. Not just the ridiculous online version they had before. I printed it out at my office. It is “only” 921 pages long! But it has an index 😎.

 

IMO, if you're looking for a car for "longer journeys", the front seat comfort of Volvos is extremely good. As one person in another forum I subscribe to stated, paraphrasing, somehow Volvo designed the front seats to get progressively more comfortable the drive increases in length. This has certainly been my experience, with numerous 5+ hour one-way/260 mile drives between my home in central NJ and my son's home in Ma.

As for "reliability", IMO, with our newest tech-heavy cars, if/where problems arise, they are typically in the car's infotainment system. In this respect, Volvo's new partnership with Google is, IMO, an early adopter work-in-progress, but probably not as bad as the complaints in various forums. As one person said in this thread, people tend to use these forums for research and/or complaints, while at other times look for repair advice.

My factory-ordered 2020 V90 Inscription T6 was the first Volvo I ever owned. I was apprehensive about "reliability", but was blown away with it's front seat comfort (I took a 125 test drive), WHIPS, and how good it looked. After 27+ months and 20K+ miles, I'm not sorry I did. The only problem I encountered was with BLIS, which was fixed with a software update. With this said, I opted at the time of delivery to purchase a VIP plan, which wound up being paid for with Volvo factory and Costco Car Buying Program rebates (only had to pay $100 out-of-pocket). I bought the Platinum plan, with zero deductible, to extend my coverage to 10 years or 100K miles, whichever comes first. In all of my years of buying new cars (I typically buy-and-keep for 10+, really more like 15+ years), this is the first car I purchased the extended warranty for, particularly due to all of the "electronics".

My advice is to do your own research and then buy the car you are comfortable with.

 

I have been monitoring the various Volvo forums for XC60 PHEV problems for the past year, anticipating on possibly buying the XC60 T8 ER (as I eventually did 2.5 months ago). The problems were extremely widespread for 2022 Volvos across the board (not just the XC60s) with the new Google OS infotainment system, with the crappy software apparently negatively affecting much of what the car does. But following the upgrade to ver. 2.2 of the OS software, I have noticed fewer and fewer problems posted on the forums -- not to say that they don't still crop up, but to say that Volvo seems to be addressing some of the worst problems.

I have one of the last 2022 XC60 T8 ERs made (mine came out of the factory in April, and arrived at my dealership in Boston in early June). About a month into ownership, on a really hot day here (upper 90s F), I came out of a supermarket to a really hot car cabin, turned on the car, and the A/C refused to come on (I don't remember now for sure if the fan came on or not, but I don't think the fan did, either). So I drove home in oppressive cabin heat, and when I got home, I remembered from reading the forums to try re-booting the infotainment computer (pushing black button at bottom of screen for about 30 seconds), and it re-booted, and my A/C and fan were back as soon as the car rebooted. No problem with A/C since, but this is a problem reported also by numerous other 2022 Volvo owners. Why on earth the A/C should be connected to the infotainment OS is beyond me (because it should NOT be), and no way that A/C should bomb out when a car is less than a month new, regardless of price paid. I've had the Google Maps freeze up on me 2-3 times, but no more than a minute or two max. The other problem that's recurring for me is that the car temporarily (for 10-60 seconds, roughly) ignores the fact that I have "lane-keep assist" permanently off (which you do in the infotainment menu), and at highway speeds on expressways, the steering wheel will start jerking left or right, as if it thinks I'm not doing a good job of staying in my lane (though I am doing fine); it's mainly an annoyance so far, as it doesn't pull me into the next lane (yet, anyway) but something that I have little confidence in my dealership being able to address (because, well, software). But otherwise my 2022 XC60 T8 ER has performed flawlessly -- no 12-volt-battery drain issues -- and it has exceeded my expectations.

As for your shopping around, volvo_recharge, I can tell you that I looked closely at two other PHEVs when I was considering my XC60 T8 ER: the RAV4 Prime (which we already own in 2021 model-year form, but it's my wife's daily driver) and the Cayenne E-Hybrid (which I've been considering seriously for several years). I looked at all available PHEVs, but nothing comes close to these three vehicles, in my opinion, for fun-driving experience and good all-electric range as well as good ICE range when you're unable to charge on road trips, and I want good ground clearance for my occasional driving off-road (and on really bad unpaved roads, too). I wanted something more comfortable, seat-wise, than the RAV4 Prime for my long annual road trips, and as great as the RAV4 Prime is (best PHEV on the market for the money), I just didn't want another one; one is enough for our household, though my wife preferred that I save the money to get another RAV4 Prime (our final cost after tax credits and state rebates on the Prime was about half the cost of our XC60 T8 ER). The Cayenne has been steadily increasing in price, year by year, and its all-electric range is still to small for me (only about 30 miles, vs. 40 miles for the XC60 T8 ER and 50 miles for the RAV4 Prime), and as optioned how I want it would cost $25k-$30k more than the XC60. Bizarrely, having done lots of Cayenne E-Hybrid test-drives, I can say that the RAV4 Prime (with half the horse power of both the Cayenne and the XC60 PHEVs) has noticeably better acceleration from full stop than do the two luxury vehicles. And the Prime also does something that neither the Porsches nor the Volvos can do: in EV mode, it will stay in electric mode if you put your foot to the floor on the accelerator pedal all the way to 86 mph (whereas the Cayenne and XC60 will have the ICE kick in quickly if you put your foot to the floor). I vastly prefer the Prime's handling of acceleration this way, vs. the Cayenne and XC60. But one huge plus that the XC60 has now that neither the Prime nor the E-Hybrids have is one-pedal driving, and I stay in one-pedal driving almost all the time now when driving my XC60 -- fabulous addition by Volvo to its PHEVs! Another pleasant surprise to me is that, at least without optional air suspension, my XC60 has better ground clearance than both the Cayenne and the RAV4 Prime (9 inches vs. 8 inches).
The Cayenne is going to a larger battery pack for MY 2024, with a claimed electric range of 80 km = 50 miles, so I may trade my XC60 in for the Cayenne E-Hybrid then, or I may go all-out BEV then with the new Macan. I'm not closed to other brands BEVs, but I follow them all closely and nobody comes close to Porsche in building BEVs right now, for my preferences (with 800-volt architecture being a must-have). But that's my comparison story, for what it's worth :-)

 

Thank you all for the detailed and thoughtful responses. Very helpful.

I am in the same boat regarding keeping my cars for 10+ years. Would you mind sharing more details about the VIP plan (e.g. which plan) that is paid for with Volvo factory and Costco Car Buying Program rebates (where can I find info about these rebates) with $100 out-of-pocket? I am also using the Costco Auto Program to buy the XC60 Recharge. Thank you!

 

If you are in the USA, Steingolds a Volvo dealership out of Rhode Island sells genuine Volvo warranties. You see the price upfront......And yes I did purchase one (bought my T8 in Maryland) My dealer wanted $4200.....I paid $2300 in 2019. Steingold often has a prmo code to save $100 off their price. And Yes some people take that price to their dealer to see if they will match/beat it. You can email Michael Bernardo (mbernardo1111@gmail.com) and ask about a promocode.....If youo goto Swedespeed, he and Steingolds are talked in a high manner.

 

Timing is everything. Concerning the cost of a VIP, it's cheapest to purchase when the car is new, with minimal mileage. The longer the car is owned and the more miles that are put on it, the more the plan will cost, regardless of which VIP you buy. In my case, I purchased a 10 yr/100k (whichever comes first) Platinum plan, with zero deductible. Of course, the plan takes affect after the initial factory warranty expires. Therefore, the plan is really for an additional 6 years or 60k miles, whichever comes first. The Platinum plan is fairly inclusive, but no extended warranty plan covers everything, like an original factory warranty.

IMO, what I paid for my VIP/Platinum/zero deductible plan is probably an apples-to-oranges issue now. I bought mine in 6/2020. I'm sure inflation and others factors will have an impact on current prices.

Regarding rebates, again timing is everything. When I acquired my V90 in 6/2020, as luck would have it, between Volvo and Costco, additional rebates totaling $3000 was available. I used these rebates, plus $100, to get my VIP plan. Remember, this was when covid was really slowing car sales, so every effort was made to get people to buy cars.

I suggest you go to Steingold Volvo's website and check out the various VIP plans there. You can insert your VIN, select the plan you might want, for the duration/miles and deductible you want, and the price will be generated. Also, go to the Swedespeed Volvo Owners Forum and search for a Steingold discount code, if available. Lastly, at this forum, service this extended warranty topic. It has been discussed many times before, in a number of threads.

 

Why is anyone buying a new car today. They're all garbage. Just lease and exchange keys. Haven't been to a mechanic in 20 yrs. Any issues I live with until....u guessed it.

 

Well, this is a Volvo forum. And Volvo has gotten less and less reliable over the last decade or two in terms of its software and electronics -- a weakness that Volvo has had for decades now, and something it has a hard time overcoming. So getting any car now with the complex computer software is going to be a problematical move, long-term if not short-term. All of the Sensus-OS cars will be quickly outdated (to me, they looked outdated when they first came out, like a 10-year old computer system upon launch), and Volvo will probably phase out support for Sensus soon because they're a small company with limited resources; so if you bought that Sensus car three years ago to last 10-15 years, good luck finding parts to fix the infotainment system in five years from now. From the perspective of depending too much on software, and not having that software be robust, most automakers today have serious issues (and that includes "leading-edge" automakers like Tesla); and all those automakers like Tesla and Volvo that are putting audio and climate and phone controls into touch screens (very unwisely for driver safety) instead of retaining physical buttons/dials for those things to make them orders-of-magnitude safer are going in the wrong direction.

We have routinely kept our cars beyond 200k miles on the odometer; I still have my 2001 V70 XC wagon with 250k miles on it. But those days are gone: cars with the complex computer systems now will be less robust because of the Achilles' heel of those computer systems, and they won't be dependable much beyond 5-10 years now; fixing them a decade from now will be nigh-impossible, as computer systems evolve so quickly, and cars with ICEs in them will be sold much less a decade from now than they are now. I've run the numbers on leasing vs. buying (with a bank loan) many times, and car leasing always fails by a long shot in the sense that you lose much more money via leasing, not to mention all the restrictions you have in a lease. When you buy (with or without a bank loan), you have all the control; you can sell three months after you buy the car, if you want, if you don't like it or the problems it's having. With all the Volvo problems now with the Google OS, which says a lot about Volvo's engineering department and leadership in terms of putting out half-baked products too soon, it would be folly to spend tons of money on a lease that you're then stuck with for 3 years or whatever, with a limit on the number of miles you can drive, and not to mention that you have no equity in the car if you want to move on to something else at lease end. And for this same reason I would not buy a used car with all this computer equipment in it.

So, for me and many others, in this era of moving from non-computerized (or minimally computerized) ICE vehicles toward heavily computerized EVs, I'm sticking with buying new cars and trading them in before warranty expiration (sometimes long before warranty expiration) as many new, exciting EVs (whether PHEVs or BEVs) come onto the market now on a monthly basis. Yes, you lose depreciation money in constantly buying new cars like this, but in this pandemic era, depreciation has been very curtailed, and I'm seeing my 3-year-old car trading in for close to the price I paid for it new, while getting a new car with a new warranty. And owning your car is like owning vs. renting your home: if you can afford to own, it makes no sense to rent/lease, as you always lose tons of money that way.