A few questions and comments on my new XC60 PHEV

[Yelper85]

How can you hold in Pure mode and why does the engine still run when not charging?

Start the car. Go to Pure mode. All good, sat there on battery.

If you hit charge, the engine fires up, but then if you turn charge off (and hold is off), the engine continues to run? Why is this as the battery was sat there with 50% left so it’s not like it was depleted and had no choice but to fire up as it only did then when I asked it to charge the battery (which I find odd that it allows this in Pure rather than switching back to Hybrid).

Also, how can you hold charge in Pure mode? I had Hold enabled yet the engine didn’t fire and it was running on battery???


How do you get back to the charging info once the info button is pressed.

If I have the charging cable plugged in, it gives me the estimated time to full. If I press the ok/accept button on the steering wheel, I get a couple of messages and then it goes to the map in the centre cluster. How on earth do I quickly get back to the charging screen information as the only way I’ve found thus far is to tun the ignition off/on!


Windows and sunroof auto close when raining.

The car will auto close all windows and sunroof if you hold the close button down for 3 seconds. The car will auto open all windows if you hold the open button down for 5 seconds. The sunroof will close if it gets too hot in the cabin. Why doesn’t the car automatically close the windows and sunroof if rain is detected? The car that this one replaced had it, and that was a 2007 plate!


Stop auto connect and play from Bluetooth devices?

This might well be incorrect operation on my part, but we seem to have issues with the Bluetooth comms for media play.

So me and my wife have our phones paired to the car, however it will randomly choose which phone to try and connect to even if my wife’s is in the car and mine is in the bedroom some 8-10m away.

On top of that, if it does connect, it’s random as to whether it automatically starts playing tracks of not! We’ve had it where my wife was pulling off the drive for work and I’m asleep then all of a sudden my music starts blaring out of the car, or even more strange, it decides to play the only track we have downloaded from iTunes. What on earth is it going off?

Can you have it such that the car connects to all paired Bluetooth devices that are in range but not attempt to connect to any of them let alone start playing!???

Also, if you save the profile, does the profile remember the last device it was connected to and use this as the default device to connect to or should it purely be the last device played in the car?

In the communication settings you can untick stuff, but I don't know if this stops it automatically connecting and playing or if it stops the paired device allowing that service at all?


Battery charge not shown as percentage.

This is a personal annoyance, but I find it very annoying. Not only does it appear you can’t customise the cluster display at all other than four small bland dial colours, but Volvo have also decided to keep the fuel gage and battery level as old-school analogue looking gauges rather than digital numeric, or at least have the option to choose. The battery gauge is especially stupid looking.

It’s a digital display in a digital car in a digital world, why can’t I have everything displayed as numbers rather than gauges? Even my 16 plate V60 displayed it better than this XC60! I want speed as a big single numeric on the left and all the cruise info etc with it, then map in the centre, then all other info to the left-hand side like fuel, battery, charge status. The digital implementation of analogue gauges just takes up too much real estate and the fact you can’t customise basic information is a real disappointment.

Thoughts and opinions welcome, negative or otherwise

Thanks in advance

[sandys]

Originally Posted by Yelper85

How can you hold in Pure mode and why does the engine still run when not charging?

Start the car. Go to Pure mode. All good, sat there on battery.

If you hit charge, the engine fires up, but then if you turn charge off (and hold is off), the engine continues to run? Why is this as the battery was sat there with 50% left so it’s not like it was depleted and had no choice but to fire up as it only did then when I asked it to charge the battery (which I find odd that it allows this in Pure rather than switching back to Hybrid).

Also, how can you hold charge in Pure mode? I had Hold enabled yet the engine didn’t fire and it was running on battery???

Engine will need to warm through once its been on for exhaust/CAT etc, you can't hold charge in pure as you are using the battery to power the rear e-motor, the moment you push charge the engine comes on to drive the front e-motor to charge the battery, when you hit hold the engine comes on and only uses battery/e-motor for low speed.

Originally Posted by Yelper85

How do you get back to the charging info once the info button is pressed.

If I have the charging cable plugged in, it gives me the estimated time to full. If I press the ok/accept button on the steering wheel, I get a couple of messages and then it goes to the map in the centre cluster. How on earth do I quickly get back to the charging screen information as the only way I’ve found thus far is to tun the ignition off/on!

Don't know, never sat in the car waiting, the car is such a slow charger why would you want to sit in the car waiting, go out have a nice day and use the app.

Originally Posted by Yelper85

Windows and sunroof auto close when raining.

The car will auto close all windows and sunroof if you hold the close button down for 3 seconds. The car will auto open all windows if you hold the open button down for 5 seconds. The sunroof will close if it gets too hot in the cabin. Why doesn’t the car automatically close the windows and sunroof if rain is detected? The car that this one replaced had it, and that was a 2007 plate!

Seems like a logical thing, not seen it advertised as a feature, submit a request on the app, unlikely to go anywhere but you never know, I'd have thought that would require more sensors on an additional battery drain so might not be desirable.

Originally Posted by Yelper85

Stop auto connect and play from Bluetooth devices?

This might well be incorrect operation on my part, but we seem to have issues with the Bluetooth comms for media play.

So me and my wife have our phones paired to the car, however it will randomly choose which phone to try and connect to even if my wife’s is in the car and mine is in the bedroom some 8-10m away.

On top of that, if it does connect, it’s random as to whether it automatically starts playing tracks of not! We’ve had it where my wife was pulling off the drive for work and I’m asleep then all of a sudden my music starts blaring out of the car, or even more strange, it decides to play the only track we have downloaded from iTunes. What on earth is it going off?

Can you have it such that the car connects to all paired Bluetooth devices that are in range but not attempt to connect to any of them let alone start playing!???

Also, if you save the profile, does the profile remember the last device it was connected to and use this as the default device to connect to or should it purely be the last device played in the car?

In the communication settings you can untick stuff, but I don't know if this stops it automatically connecting and playing or if it stops the paired device allowing that service at all?

Not sure about Iphone issues but not had this issue with our Samsungs, the phones are paired per profile and the profiles for each driver are activated by each key, whoever starts the car their profile gets loaded with their devices taking precedence, have you set this up?

Ours always seems to need us to push play, than start blaring, don't know why, I've not touched anything to my knowledge, I find it a touch annoying as my other car autoplays so I have been used to that behavior for the past decade, horses for courses

Originally Posted by Yelper85

Battery charge not shown as percentage.

This is a personal annoyance, but I find it very annoying. Not only does it appear you can’t customise the cluster display at all other than four small bland dial colours, but Volvo have also decided to keep the fuel gage and battery level as old-school analogue looking gauges rather than digital numeric, or at least have the option to choose. The battery gauge is especially stupid looking.

It’s a digital display in a digital car in a digital world, why can’t I have everything displayed as numbers rather than gauges? Even my 16 plate V60 displayed it better than this XC60! I want speed as a big single numeric on the left and all the cruise info etc with it, then map in the centre, then all other info to the left-hand side like fuel, battery, charge status. The digital implementation of analogue gauges just takes up too much real estate and the fact you can’t customise basic information is a real disappointment.

Thoughts and opinions welcome, negative or otherwise

Thanks in advance

Speed comes up as numbers in the HUD, so you don't need to look down at the DIS.

I personally see no benefit to a percentage, so have no comment on this, yes the driver information display is under utilized, I don't mind it but can't see them focussing on it, new models have gone all central screen Telsa I doubt they will push this further, time will tell, as with anything you can report your hopes and dreams with Volvo and you never know what they will attack next.

[giftgrub100]

How can you hold in Pure mode and why does the engine still run when not charging?

As above, not possible to hold the charge in the battery when driving on battery.

How do you get back to the charging info once the info button is pressed.

As above, No idea why you would sit in the car when its charging.

Windows and sunroof auto close when raining.

it will close the sunroof blind when its hot, not the roof, they wont automatically close

Stop auto connect and play from Bluetooth devices?

It will connect to whatever device was last connected if both available. switch media to radio and problem will go away or turn off the app on your phone that you were listening to when you get out of the car then it wont play that podcast/music etc

Battery charge not shown as percentage.

Nothing can be done here, that's what we get.

[Past Master]

Like you I was a bit surprised at the lack of features when I switched from a (fairly basic) Evoque. However I've come to feel that the features it does have are the important ones, and after all, there's less to go wrong! The only things I really miss are a proper rev counter, an exterior handle to open the boot when the kick technique doesn't work, and the heated steering wheel. Since my Evoque didn't have the last two either I'm not that fussed, although on a car that's nearly 50% more expensive, maybe I should expect more?
Edit: AND the spare wheel of course. Really miss that (having already smashed one tyre on our local roads).

[sandys]

Originally Posted by Past Master

Like you I was a bit surprised at the lack of features when I switched from a (fairly basic) Evoque. However I've come to feel that the features it does have are the important ones, and after all, there's less to go wrong! The only things I really miss are a proper rev counter, an exterior handle to open the boot when the kick technique doesn't work, and the heated steering wheel. Since my Evoque didn't have the last two either I'm not that fussed, although on a car that's nearly 50% more expensive, maybe I should expect more?
Edit: AND the spare wheel of course. Really miss that (having already smashed one tyre on our local roads).

Confused, there is a boot button/handle on the rear?

Rev counter shows in power mode.

[sk546]

Originally Posted by Past Master

Like you I was a bit surprised at the lack of features when I switched from a (fairly basic) Evoque. However I've come to feel that the features it does have are the important ones, and after all, there's less to go wrong! The only things I really miss are a proper rev counter, an exterior handle to open the boot when the kick technique doesn't work, and the heated steering wheel. Since my Evoque didn't have the last two either I'm not that fussed, although on a car that's nearly 50% more expensive, maybe I should expect more?
Edit: AND the spare wheel of course. Really miss that (having already smashed one tyre on our local roads).

As Sandys mentions, there should be a boot release button above the rear number plate between the number plate lights to open the boot when you cant quite find the right spot to open it with the foot gesture (something that seems much harder to do on my current AAOS car than on my previous Sensus car but I don't want to get accused of either favouritism to Sensus or critical of AAOS as I liked both just for different reasons).

As far as the rev counter goes, you clearly need to drive more in Power/Polestar mode and less in Hybrid/Pure mode as it shows a proper one then.
To be fair, you dont really need to know what the engine is doing in either Pure or Hybrid modes, it just does what it does but very nice to see what its up to when having a spirited drive in the only correct mode to use i.e. POWER!!!!!!

As far as the heated steering wheel goes, I'm assuming thats a model spec list thing seeing as Volvo have mostly removed the option list these days, thankfully my PE came with it (smug face on) but I do agree about the lack of a real spare wheel. It makes rotating tyres very difficult indeed.

[BrettEverett]

Originally Posted by sk546

the only correct mode to use i.e. POWER!!!!!!

You sound just like Clarkson there… 😂😂

[nu11eaf]

Why doesn’t the car automatically close the windows and sunroof if rain is detected ?.

This may be a safety related, to stop uncontrolled closing and possibly trapping issues.

Tailgate does have a release button under the lip.

[Yelper85]

Hi all,

Many thanks for the replies, much appreciated. I’ll run through each question again from the replies:

How can you hold in Pure mode and why does the engine still run when not charging?

Engine will need to warm through once its been on for exhaust/CAT etc, you can't hold charge in pure as you are using the battery to power the rear e-motor, the moment you push charge the engine comes on to drive the front e-motor to charge the battery, when you hit hold the engine comes on and only uses battery/e-motor for low speed.

As above, not possible to hold the charge in the battery when driving on battery.

Maybe I didn’t word this very well. Engine is stone cold, get in, Hybrid mode, sat there on battery. Go into Pure mode. I can press Hold and the button illuminates with no message. Are you saying as soon as I move it will disengage the Hold button because as you said and my question alluded to, you can’t hold if the point of Pure is 100% electric usage.

So if I’m sat there in Pure and hit charge, it will indeed start the engine to charge like I experienced? Why then when I turn Charge off does the engine keep running if it’s only been on for say 10 seconds, or will it still need to stay on because of the exhaust/CAT etc? Seems odd to me that if you press Charge once in Pure it would need to keep the engine running until the point the exhaust/CAT etc was happy as that seems incredibly wasteful?


How do you get back to the charging info once the info button is pressed.

Don't know, never sat in the car waiting, the car is such a slow charger why would you want to sit in the car waiting, go out have a nice day and use the ap

As above, No idea why you would sit in the car when its charging.

I don’t want to sit in the car and have no intention of doing so either. I just want to know how to get the information back up should I want to check it. I’ve noticed this is the same with non-critical messages as well, as soon as you acknowledge them, you get the yellow/amber ‘I’ symbol but have no way to show the actual message again.


Windows and sunroof auto close when raining.

Seems like a logical thing, not seen it advertised as a feature, submit a request on the app, unlikely to go anywhere but you never know, I'd have thought that would require more sensors on an additional battery drain so might not be desirable.

it will close the sunroof blind when its hot, not the roof, they wont automatically close.

This may be a safety related, to stop uncontrolled closing and possibly trapping issues.

I suppose that if the point of closing is because it’s hot, leaving the roof open but curtain closed might actually be beneficial to let hot air escape, although I thought the pano roof had heat reflective coating on it so you could argue it would be worth closing. If it closes the curtain, does it also turn the fans up to max?

I wouldn’t have thought it’s a safety thing as they detect trapped objects anyway and stop/reverse, especially when you consider if you hold the lock button for 5 seconds it closes all windows, roof curtain, and the entire pano roof glass.


Stop auto connect and play from Bluetooth devices?

Not sure about Iphone issues but not had this issue with our Samsungs, the phones are paired per profile and the profiles for each driver are activated by each key, whoever starts the car their profile gets loaded with their devices taking precedence, have you set this up?

Ours always seems to need us to push play, than start blaring, don't know why, I've not touched anything to my knowledge, I find it a touch annoying as my other car autoplays so I have been used to that behavior for the past decade, horses for courses

It will connect to whatever device was last connected if both available. switch media to radio and problem will go away or turn off the app on your phone that you were listening to when you get out of the car then it wont play that podcast/music etc

So let me get this right, paired phones are per profile and not generic to the car? So in my profile I could have two phones paired but my wife could have just one? As it stands, we have both mine and my wife’s phone on both profiles as we swap Bluetooth devices when driving. From my experience, just because the car gets loaded with a particular profile at the start does not mean a particular device takes preference, quite the opposite, it’s random even though one device is sat in the car and the other 10m away!

As for the auto play, I prefer that it doesn’t automatically start, and again this is the problem as it does, and when it does it’s some random iTunes track.


Battery charge not shown as percentage.

Speed comes up as numbers in the HUD, so you don't need to look down at the DIS.

I personally see no benefit to a percentage, so have no comment on this, yes the driver information display is under utilized, I don't mind it but can't see them focussing on it, new models have gone all central screen Telsa I doubt they will push this further, time will tell, as with anything you can report your hopes and dreams with Volvo and you never know what they will attack next.

Nothing can be done here, that's what we get.

I don’t have HUD, I have Heated Windscreen.

[sk546]

Originally Posted by Yelper85

So if I’m sat there in Pure and hit charge, it will indeed start the engine to charge like I experienced? Why then when I turn Charge off does the engine keep running if it’s only been on for say 10 seconds, or will it still need to stay on because of the exhaust/CAT etc? Seems odd to me that if you press Charge once in Pure it would need to keep the engine running until the point the exhaust/CAT etc was happy as that seems incredibly wasteful?

It has nothing to do with being wasteful, it has everything to do with Engine longevity and reliability.
From stone cold, you are expecting an Internal Combustion Engine to start and then stop again in a really short period, this just isn't good for engines or their emissions control systems.
Once the ICE is started from cold (or from near cold if you are using the additional heater as this partially warms the engine block and oil to prevent cold start wear), the ICE will run until the ECU detects that a number of conditions are met, oil temp, coolant temp and emissions control (i.e. cat and GPF) all have the correct operating temperature at which point, the ICE will shut down until needed again.
After these conditions are met (which is much faster if the additional heater is utilised), the ICE will start and stop very quickly with little/no gap between if thats how you are driving but from stone cold, stopping and starting like you are asking for will massively increase wear and tear and expect engine issues very quickly.
Electric motors dont need any warming to operate efficiently (although battery packs do oddly), Internal Combustion Engines do.