The Best Sound System... PERIOD - Volvo S90 Recharge
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2023-05-05
·
2,999 words · ~14 min read
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Here we have the Volvo S90 Recharge and I got it because it might be the best plug-in hybrid
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on the market. That's not what we're going to look at first. Holy freak. The sound system in
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this thing is freaking amazing. Just come on over here, Brent. Look at this. It's a $3,000 option,
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but holy ball, is it ever worth it? I think this one down here is made of Kevlar. This one's
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aluminum. That one's aluminum covered in this nice stainless steel. Looks amazing. In the center,
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we have a tweeter and then two center speakers. There's 19 in total. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
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9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. That's not the start of the show. Back in here, we have a
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9.8-inch subwoofer that's bonded directly to the chassis. Just come and look at this, Brandon.
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It being bonded directly to the chassis means it transmits all of those vibrations
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through the entire car straight to your butt.
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Now,
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I've felt a lot of bass in a car before, but it's not the same when it's your buddy's
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Jetta and he has 220s in the trunk and the lid comes off when you play it. This is the most
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refined sub bass that I've ever felt in a car. It'll make you go to the movies and be like,
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huh, that's a pretty casual subwoofer they have there. I wish it was better. Let's have a listen.
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I went ahead and got a title subscription just for these speakers. Normally,
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Spotify quality is more than good enough. In here, you notice the
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difference. It's just so good. I'm sorry that my mic probably isn't really doing it justice.
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Now, right now, I have it on the stage mode with the subwoofer just cranked because I really like
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the bass. It's so good. But if we come over here and put it in studio mode and reset it,
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it's the flattest EQ I've ever heard in a car. Well, I didn't even know that it tailed off like
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that before. You just hear these little details in your songs that you've never heard before.
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It's absolutely amazing. We're going to do proper sound testing stuff on it later. I'm guessing,
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based off my ears, that it's almost completely flat in this, and we'll verify that with a graph
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right here. Anyway, let's look at the actual car bits. Now, we have the inscription model of the
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S90, which is just straight grandpa spec. Like, all of this chrome up here, it does look really
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good. Like, all the Volvos for the last 10 years have looked great, especially, like,
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there's a nice...
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...
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Thor's hammer headlight. Awesome. I would get the R-Spec. It just blacks everything out.
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Moving around over here, right here, we have our charging port. So, this gets you, what,
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like, 60 kilometers of range, pure electric. Now, I am a little bit disappointed there's no
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fast charger, but again, like, whatever. It's a plug-in hybrid. If you don't fast charge,
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you just use the engine. It's fine. Let's take a look at that. In total, we have 450 horsepower,
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and 312 of it is coming from this guy right here. It's a two-liter four-cylinder that makes 312
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horsepower, thanks to a big old snail on the back there. Now, this used to come as a supercharged
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and turbocharged engine. I'm really glad that it only has a turbo now. Like, you don't need
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the supercharger when you have the electric, and it's just one less thing to fail in a car that has
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so many things that can fail. Get the 10-year warranty. Wow.
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This hood's really high. Look at that. That would probably hit the roof in my parking garage.
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Holy s***. Anyway. The rear wheels are driven entirely by electric, so they contribute 143
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horsepower, but 228 foot-pounds of torque. Now, that's just awesome, because you can take off,
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the electric gets you going, and then by the time that, like, it's starting to peter out,
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the turbo's spooled up, and you can just rocket it. Now, it's kind of down here,
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and you can't really see it, but whatever. Trunk's nice and big. You can fit, like,
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four or five bodies in there. Easy. Our first really big problem, though, is in
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this area. The trunk might be big, but this is a Volvo, and it's not a wagon. That's just dumb.
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Like, why would you buy the S90 when the V90 exists? Volvos, wagons, Volvo Canada, get us a
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V90, please. I want to drive it. Anyway, Brandon, you're really wrong. Wagons are sick. Let's get
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a backseat. Back here, we have the executive seating, so I can do fun things, like annoy the
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person in front of me by just moving their seat back and forth. You know, want more leg room?
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Move them up. Want to crush them? I can. Excellent. We also have must-haves of saloons, like, you know,
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the good old peasant blockers here, even blocking the rear peasants. Awesome. We even have control
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of the sunroof in the back, although I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do it in the back.
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I don't think this camera will be too happy about it. Aside from that, we have your typical
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comforts that you have in luxury cars. You know, you have climate control back here, rear heated
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seats. Ventilated is an option. And, okay, you normally don't have this, but there's also
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a little cigar ashtray. One thing that's kind of weird about this is that in here, where you
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normally have storage, there's almost none. But there's a good reason for that. All of your
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seats are right in here. Now, I appreciate this placement because in some other hybrids,
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they'll have just a bunch of your trunk space taken up with it. Or, like, you won't be able to
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push down your seats properly because there's a big battery in the way. Getting in the driver's
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seat, like, hot damn, is a nice place to be. These are some of the most comfortable seats that I've
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ever felt in a car. There's heaps of adjustments. You can do length of the seat, the size of the
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bolsters, lumbar, forward, backward, all of that good stuff. And, you know, you can do a lot of
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so comfortable. Absolutely love it. Everything in here is real genuine leather that cows died for.
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All of the wood that you see here is actual oak that trees died for. It's all, it's all very
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nicely put together. I just, it's a very premium spot to be, despite the fact that, like, you know,
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the chrome and the wood and the stuff is, again, very grandpa spec. I appreciate it, though.
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To turn the S90 on, you just turn this little dial to the right,
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turn it off, you might expect you'd turn it to the left, but, uh, nope, that's also to the right as
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well. Kind of weird, but, uh, whatever. Up front here, we have Android Automotive. It's easily one
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of the best infotainment systems on the market right now. It works great, and you're able to
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have different people's Google profiles in there and match to your key, so you get in and, like,
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your Spotify title, what have you, just signs into your account. Freaking awesome. Now, if you want
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to learn more about Android Automotive, we went into a lot of detail.
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In our Volvo XC40 Recharge review, but, again, the TLDR, freaking awesome. The only thing that
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concerns me is that they haven't added Android Auto or Apple CarPlay into it yet. They say it's
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coming, but they also said it was coming back when we did the XC40 review in, like, December.
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So, when will that arrive? Will it ever arrive? Probably. How much do you trust Volvo and Google?
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For media controls, we get nice physical buttons,
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and even though the climate control is entirely touchscreen, I don't hate it. Like,
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it works pretty well. I just, in general, haven't been annoyed by it. Even my father, who's over 60,
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had no trouble just navigating this and getting it all to work. Good job, Volvo, I guess.
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The funny thing is, though, watching reviews from, like, 2018 when they first put out this system,
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people had no clue how to use it. They hated it. And now, a couple years later, it's
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all perfect.
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It's perfectly fine. Makes sense now. To shift into drive, you just pull back on this incredibly
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fancy Oreo 4 shifter. Just like that. And now I'm in neutral. You have to click it twice. It's
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really stupid. And to get reverse, you have to go forward twice again. I go into neutral on this
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thing all the time. It should just be one click. It's two. That's dumb, Volvo. Change it.
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Let's go. Driving is actually good. In previous versions of the S90, there was a little knob down
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here that allowed you to easily change your drive modes. Now, Volvo got rid of it, and instead it's
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now in the infotainment. So if I want to go to power, or go up like that. Volvo says it's because
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no one used their drive modes. They look at the data, no one's using it. But Volvo, why do you
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think people are not using your drive modes? Is it because people don't use them, or because your
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drive modes suck?
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I think it's the latter, because even though this has four-corner active suspension, I can't tell the
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difference between power and hybrid and all of the different modes. Like, even in my Golf GTI, going
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from sport to comfort, you can really just feel the whole thing go from, like, tight and wanting
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to go, to just kind of relaxed and sort of glides over bumps. In this, you have the suspension, and
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it is well set up, but I just really wish that they allowed you a little bit more range of the
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suspension, and the chassis, and everything. Instead of just, here's what you get. Anyway, do you want
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to do a little launchy launch, Brandon? I haven't done a launch in this yet. It's not the kind of car
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where you... Oh, wow! It launches pretty hard, damn! There was some wheel spin there. 0-60 in 4.9 seconds,
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and I think there was some wheel hop in the front, and we definitely spun the rears. Damn, that was
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enjoyable. Did you like that, Brandon?
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Uh, yeah.
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You did? Great. So, yeah, this thing is proper fast. Like, you put your foot down, and just...
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It just charges. It doesn't do it, except for back there when I brake boosted it.
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It's always very refined. Like, you put your foot down, and I don't think they're giving you the full
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electric, like, all at once. I think they're just smoothing everything out, so that you don't have
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that, like... If you've ever been in a Tesla with someone that's a bad driver in one pedal mode, it's
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an awful time.
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Speaking of which, though, this is, as far as I know, the only plug-in hybrid that has
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proper one-pedal driving. You give a little pull back on the shifter, and you can go between drive
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and braking. It's just friggin' awesome. I absolutely love one-pedal driving, and it allows
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you to kind of get that feel of a manual transmission car in an automatic. Like, there's
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something about the engine braking that I just love. It makes the whole experience better. It
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allows you to kind of trim your legs a little bit. It's just, like, super fun. I think I've had a lot of
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trim your lines as you're dipping into and out of corners.
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I absolutely love it.
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And as a bonus, you get more, you know,
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energy recovery from the braking.
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So your battery lasts longer.
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Awesome.
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Up front, the center display is just awesome.
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It is very similar to the one that we found
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in like the IONIQ 5 and the Kia EV6,
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but it's just so much better executed.
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So through the steering wheel,
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I can clearly see everything that's up there.
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And in the center, you only have two options,
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either nothing or Google Maps.
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I just keep Google Maps on there all the time.
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It is just great to be able to look here,
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have your directions,
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and your passenger can screw around with the infotainment
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and you don't have to worry about missing a stop.
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Oh, here's a speed bump.
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How is it going to handle this?
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Let's just hit it.
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Okay, that was actually fine.
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Larger bumps, it filters out no problem.
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At low speeds,
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it can be a little bit cramped,
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a little bit crashy.
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Like it's nothing like an electric car
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or most electric cars,
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but there's a little bit more harshness
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than I would expect in like a big executive saloon.
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I understand why they did it though.
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Once you get on the highway
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and up to above about a hundred kilometers per hour,
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the suspension in this thing is just sublime.
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Okay, we found some corners.
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Here we go.
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If you really want to,
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it can be quite rapid.
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Like you can,
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flip it into a corner here.
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It is quite fast.
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Like almost shockingly so given the size of the thing.
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But when you like really push it,
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like right there,
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you can feel the whole thing just being like,
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why?
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Why are you doing this?
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You could be driving smoothly right now
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and you should drive smoothly.
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And then you kind of just do.
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It's honestly like a better B-Road cruiser
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than a lot of sports cars that I've been in.
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Because in those, the whole time,
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I'm just thinking, wow,
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this would be really great
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if I could go 200 kilometers per hour right now.
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Whereas instead in this, it's like,
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hmm, I'm happy going 120.
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What else do we have here, Brandon?
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Oh, assists.
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So the steering assist in this is quite good.
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The problem is that I never use it since to activate it,
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you have to go in driving,
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scroll down here and then enable steering assist.
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If they just had a button on the steering,
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I would use it all the time
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because it does work pretty well.
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But at the same time,
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if I have to go in the menus,
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yeah, I don't do it.
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The adaptive cruise control also is pretty good.
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It's excellent up until, I don't know,
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you get down to about 20, 30 kilometers per hour,
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and then it can be a little bit jerky.
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If you're following a Lexus with like
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a proper adaptive cruise,
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it's gonna be nice and smooth.
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But if you're behind someone that has an N
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on the back of their car, it's not gonna be so good.
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But if you're behind someone that has an N on the back of their car, it's not gonna be so good.
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But if you're behind someone that has an N on the back of their car, it's not gonna be so good.
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Overall, driving this has just been fantastic.
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Like ever since I've got it, I've loved it.
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Everyone else that's gotten in it has just loved the car.
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I'm really surprised.
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Like just everything feels really well thought through
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when so many other vehicles feel like they're just
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slapping all the tech in for the sake of it being tech and fancy.
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In Canada, this starts around 70 grand,
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and as spec'd,
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it comes in at 90.
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There's a lot of other cars that are available for $90,000.
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I don't know.
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I don't drive saloons all the time, Brandon.
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Do we even give good consumer advice on that?
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You probably live in a different country anyway.
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It doesn't even matter.
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Anyway, the sound system of this thing is fricking amazing.
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So I'm going to get back to listening to it.
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Have a great day.
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See you later.
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Volvo, if you want to give someone a V90
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for a long-term review, for a long-term review,
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I know someone.
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See ya.