When it comes to Volvo, I believe that the first keyword that comes to mind is safety, and the second time to think of it is its more characteristic Nordic design style. But in addition, it seems difficult to dig out any more highlights on the Volvo brand. As the inventor of the car three-point seat belt, the promoter of the airbag, we must acknowledge the investment and contribution of the Volvo brand in safety technology, but safety does not equal quality, in this era of high safety standards in the luxury car industry, Volvo's safety advantages are not only decreasing year by year, but more fatally, a large number of quality problems and the emergence of recalls, is also making the development of this Nordic luxury brand encountered "stumbling blocks".
Does Volvo sell well? At least from the perspective of Geely's acquisition of Volvo in the past decade, Compared with the Ford era, Volvo's sales in the Chinese market and global sales have indeed grown a lot. This is inseparable from the domestic production of too many Volvoia models and the sales of large terminal discounts. However, in January 2022, Volvo's sales in the Chinese market were only 14,600 units, down 12.8% year-on-year! You know, although forced by the impact of the epidemic, the sales of luxury car brands in the past two years have generally shown an upward trend, the prevalence of luxury car consumption, the impact of consumption upgrades in the market background, Volvo is exhausted, and even by the red flag of the same second-tier luxury brand to open a huge gap, it is really a bit confusing.
However, although Volvo failed to get a good place in the sales list, in the January 2022 car complaint list, volvo XC60 surpassed Volkswagen Langyi, Extreme Kr 001 and other models, winning the championship of the complaint list in January this year. So what do we think about it? It is not difficult to see from the number of complaints that in January this year, the number of complaints about XC60 was 88, and the number of complaints about Volkswagen Langyi, which ranked second, was 77, although the difference between one or two was not much, but the sales of XC60 bicycles were certainly far from being comparable to Langyi, so this amount of complaints was not difficult to reflect, and the user feedback of XC60 this car was not too optimistic.
In addition to the "common" powertrain resonance, the biggest complaint is that Volvo quietly reduced the trunk kick function on the Production Batch XC60 in October-November 2021. In the new cars from June to September 2021 and after December 2021, this function is equipped, but Volvo canceled this function without informing consumers on the Batch of models in October and November, such a perfunctory attitude is obviously not in line with the performance of a qualified luxury brand.
If XC60's secret reduction is a problem with the attitude of car companies, then the low-frequency resonance of many volvo models is a defect at the product design level. For this problem, many consumers who have purchased Volvo S60, S90 and XC60 are also very helpless. Some car owners said that Volvo's resonance problem will not only greatly reduce the driving experience, but also cause the owner to have tinnitus, dizziness and even nausea. For this problem, neither the manufacturer nor the 4S store has given a solution, and still sells cars with resonance problems.
So why doesn't Volvo solve this problem? Why would Volvo risk continuing to sell problematic cars? The answer is also very simple, that is, this problem cannot be solved at all. It stands to reason that Volvo has recalled cars in large quantities in recent years, but this does not involve recalls to solve the fault. Generally small failures can be solved by replacing parts, but low-resonance failures like Volvo are structural defects in vehicles, which are common problems brought about by the platform architecture and the "mother's womb" of the powertrain.
If you want to solve it, either replace the powertrain or directly replace the platform architecture, which is a devastating blow to any car company. This also reflects why many Volvo 4S stores are willing to give rights protection car owners a "sealing fee" and are reluctant to improve their products.