I suppose this thread is prompted by my slight disappointment with the experience of owning the Toyota Verso we bought new a year ago this month. In a sense, this week's discovery that it has a significant engine problem isn't the biggest factor here - I hope and trust our dealer's diagnosis is correct and that we'll get a complete fix and the reliability we rather assumed would be part of the Toyota package.
No, what I'm getting at is the point at which merely having a new car with some new toys is no longer enough. When the Verso was new, I used to look forward to the one day a week I'd take it on my long drive to work in place of my Volvo, both to give it some exercise and to prolong the Volvo's life. I could play podcasts from my iPod without messing about with the fiddly Griffin FM thingy, and generally enjoy being a bit higher up, having a wiper to clear the rain off the rear window, and being in something that still smelled new and clean.
Gradually, though, driving the Verso has served only to make me realize how much I like my six-year-old Volvo - and with the Verso in the workshop awaiting new injectors, and a family Bank Holiday outing in the Yaris courtesy biscuit tin too ghastly to consider, I was rather pleased that we could all go out in the S60 instead.
A few particulars in my case, generally cases of how ticking boxes on an equipment list does not guarantee lasting satisfaction:
- The Verso has dual-zone climate control, which sounds great and yes, it controls the cabin temperature. But it's controlled by an LCD display and six buttons that all look exactly the same, and when it's hot or cold outside, it never seems to put the air where I want it. After getting used to Volvo's set-and-forget CC masterpiece, this seems a poor alternative.
- Similarly, the Verso has a cruise control. But it's on a multi-way stalk control tacked behind the steering wheel at about five o'clock, with counter-intuitive movements that I can't remember from one use to the next so that I can't use it without looking down at it. It's not illuminated, so at night I can't use it at all. I keep telling myself I'll get used to it but I don't think I will.
- Then there's the instrument panel. I can probably excuse it not having a temperature gauge - as NC has commented, that only informs you of relative change anyway, so a system of lights works about as well. But I do object to not being able to display the key data of main odometer, trip mileage, time of day and outside temperature all at once. It's like going back to the days when a watch that made you press a button just to see the time was considered a sign of progress!
- The seats aren't as comfortable as I'd hoped either, although they're far from bad. I've learned to tolerate the ratchet lever for rake adjustment, but I still don't like the height adjuster that merely cranks up the rear edge of the seat like one of those stand-you-up chairs from the back pages of the Telegraph.
- And that iPod connection I was so pleased with is an ergonomic pain too. Unless you spend the night before your trip compiling an iTunes playlist, the only sensible way to select your listening material is to select it before you plug the Pod in. The T3's audio system sounds pretty duff too - and it doesn't manage to maintain tune with an RDS FM station on a long journey.
This amounts to a long list of minor gripes about what is, for the most part, a pretty well thought-out and commodious family car, that we still plan to keep for a long time. My point is that many of the 'features' that look so good on the spec sheet don't quite deliver on their promises.
The corresponding features on my middle-aged Volvo, on the other hand, continue to delight me just as they did when the car was new. Is this the difference between a 'mass market' brand and a 'premium' product? All my gripes are about the human-machine interface, to which Volvo simply seems to have given more thought than Toyota did. Or is this an entirely unfair comparison between a car that was listed at £21,000 even in 2002 and one priced at barely £19,000 (not that we paid that much) six years later?
Enough of me. What experiences do Backroomers have things that have failed to delight as they should?
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It's particularly irritating when one feature is so bad that it almost ruins an otherwise excellent car. The example I am thinking of are the excuses for seats in the 2002 era Focus LX. I've sat on more comfortable park benches.
A shame because in every other respect this was one of the absolute finest all round cars I have ever had the pleasure to live with for any length of time. It's a shame they dropped the ball. I know seats are a personal thing, but I estimate 2/3 of the people who drove that car or rode as passenger in it complained about them. Flat and unyielding, with no thigh or upper back support whatsoever.
I agree the S60 gets almost everything right in terms of living with the car, apart from the seatbelts being far too short for easy installation of child seats. My old mk2 Mondeo had the same problem. Install the same seats in a Renault Scenic or a VW Golf, and you have a good 3" more belt to play with than you get in the Volvo.
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> Is this the difference between a 'mass market' brand and a 'premium' product?<
Yes. Sadly, many car buyers don't ever get to discover that difference, which is then the basis of much ill-informed comment.
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> Is this the difference between a 'mass market' brand and a 'premium' product?<
Yes. Your gripes mainly pertain to the interior and that's one of the key differences between mass market and "premium".
Three years ago I test drove various A4s, X-Types, IS250s, 9-3s etc. Shortly afterwards I had a C-Max hire car for a day. The difference in handling was tiny and even the performance shortfall wasn't that much. However the C-Max's cabin, controls, radio etc. felt very nasty indeed compared to those (admittedly far more expensive) vehicles.
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