Sorry, don’t know how to edit a posting (if it’s at all possible).
Hi Rene If you want to edit your post you must be a registered member and even then it’s time related, not sure how long before your post locks but most forums do that these days.
Hey, cheers – i actually am a registered member, just forgot to log in. Duh.
Its easy to argue, well I’ve got this and that in my current car so I need it in my new one and get carried away. The car before our X1 had 360 degree cameras, the cost of adding them on the X1 was a lot – so we did without. Do we miss them? – yes occasionally but not £20 a week’s worth. Same with other stuff. We tried to look at what we needed, not what we wanted. We wanted a panoramic roof on the new car until we test drive one and found only the rear seat passengers benefit so why spend another £1000. At the end of the day. It’s a different car – it will have different features some better some worse. A high AP is like rent – at the end of the lease there’s nothing to show for it!
Absolutely. There’s a few things that, if i think about it long enough, i could do without – absolutely. But, i mean, a base model somethingsomething would be sufficient, because most of them have all you genuinely need. The rest is “want”. What car with a PanRoof did you test drive, since the three we drove did change the entire driving experience (GLA Prem Plus – not on the scheme anymore currently, Tiguan Elegance and Ateca)? And you’re absolutely right, one does need to find a balance rather than just blowing the AP up, have a great car for three to five years and then nothing to show for it.
The question though isn’t whether you need things, it’s the fact that some manufacturers charge for very basic things (it’s not just Volvo, of course) – when you can get the equivalent (much more, in fact) equipment in another car from a “premium manufacturer” (well..) for quite literally a quarter of the AP (after options). To me, looking at the Volvo, it’s always a bit like “yeah, i do want one, but i’d leave so much stuff on the table for so much more money”. If that makes sense?
@Glos Guy, well I will be driving.with main beam on in mine as the description on the Web site says I can, will adapt if I keep getting flashed
You can. It’s the same system (well, similar) as we currently have in our Ateca – basically, above a certain speed (it’s 37mph for us in the Ateca, that might be different in the Volvo – check the manual) the high beam comes automagically on. Once the car via radar or infrared (not sure) detects oncoming traffic (or a car in front of you), it turns the high beam off. Once the road is clear again, they come back on.
Matrix LED lights differ from that quite substantially. Once the Matrix high beam comes on, it stays on, even when there’s cars coming towards you. Instead of turning the high beam off, it turns off single LEDs (Matrix LED units have dozens, sometimes hundreds of single LEDs in a matrix) which are pointing at the oncoming traffic, the rest of the high beam stays on.
Newer systems (VW/Skoda/Audi does it, not sure about others) even “phase out” street signs. Which is the big one for me – where i live, once i get on the dual carriage way, there’s a huge street sign that turns into the surface of the sun once my high beams come on, blinding me.
This video explains it much better than me, english isn’t my first language. Notice how the car in front, even when blasted with the high beam, always sits in a “dark patch” regardless of which angle it drives in front of the car.
That said: it’s not a necessity, unlike general LED lamps (can’t ever go back to Halogen). This is one of the points where it’s really nice to have, but not actually necessary. On the other hand, if they come as standard, all the better.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.