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VOLVO XC60: It's just been launched in South Africa.
I can't help but worry about all the new-fangled electronic goodies in modern cars. They make vehicles more expensive yet their benefits are not always obvious. When they go wrong, I can't fix them.
The reason for my renewed rant against microchips and things silicon is the new Volvo XC60. In just about all respects it's a fantastic car with great comfort and performance; a promising long-distance runner and a capable commuter.
Close the windows, switch on the aircon and you're cocooned in luxury, isolated from an often harsh and noisy world. The XC60 is nice to drive, handles well and has a spine-easing suspension.
On paper it offers a lot of peace-of-mind safety, should you send your family out on the wild and dangerous roads of urban Cape Town: automatic following distance control, involuntary lane change warning, all the crash bags and side-impact protection you need, blind-spot warning, neck-protecting rear-end collision responses etc.
Then, one morning, you start the car and while still in park it tells you to either slow down or shift to a higher gear. And the blind-spot warning lights flash like disco strobes as the engine warning light goes on.
The information screen tells you the blind-spot warning cameras are blocked, no matter how you try to clean their lenses and the engine runs as roughly as an old Lister diesel generator with water in its fuel.
Worse, there seems to be no reason for the trouble.
You open the bonnet to see if you can spot anything untoward but there's only a vast plastic cover clearly designed to keep a DIY mechanic's fingers out of its vitals.
The really nasty part of this is that even if you are mechanically inclined and reasonably successful at making running repairs there's nothing you can do about this. You don't even know where to start.
The only solution: crawl to the nearest Volvo dealer and get the company to plug in its diagnostics while you sit in the waiting room visualising your money growing wings. And, yes, all of the above happened to the test car I was driving - no choice but to write about it.
Of course, while new, a modern car would be under warranty and probably be repaired under its conditions - unless after-sales service ends up being what it so often is in South Africa.
SAFEST VOLVO YET
I've been told that service at Volvo centres is reasonable as far as time and attention to detail are concerned but, typically of premium brands, it's on the dear side. That's fine if you're in a position to get the car to a dealer but what if you're in your otherwise brilliant Volvo all-wheel drive on a bit of a safari in Namibia?
It will stop itself if you don't, complain heavily if you drift across lanes without indicating and generally make you behave like a decent road user. No wonder, then, that Volvo spokesmen claim their new XC60 is the safest Volvo yet.
Volvo SA introduced the XC60 to our roads just recently. The car has a styling cue or two from BMW's monster X6 with its coupé-like roofline but it might very well be more at home on rougher roads and tracks than the big Beemer - the latter is much more of a high-rise sports car.
Bram van der Reep, MD of Volvo Car SA, said at the Cape Town launch:" The XC60 sets itself apart from its rivals through its honest, functional design that is ergonomically correct and yet, at the same time, is comfortable and beautiful.
BIGGEST NEW FEATURE
"The XC60 will also distinguish itself through its substantial off-road capability, its roominess despite its smaller exterior, and its class-leading safety features."
The biggest single new feature in the XC60 is probably City Safety - a system that will stop the car to help the driver avoid or reduce the effects of the type of low-speed impacts common in city traffic - a world first, we were told, though BMW has something similar.
Surveys indicate that 75 percent of all reported collisions take place at less than 30km/h and in half of all rear-end collisions the driver won't have braked at all. In such cases City Safety could make a crucial difference and it is active at up to 30km/h by using a laser beam that can detect vehicles and other objects up to 10m ahead.
Power comes from a three-litre, six-cylinder, turbo engine capable of 210kW or a five-cylinder D5 turbodiesel that delivers 136kW and 400Nm. All-wheel drive with "instant traction" is standard and both have an automatic Geartronic gearbox with manual an option.
I CAN FIX MY CLASSICS
Luxuries abound: when the car is unlocked with the remote control the cabin is automatically ventilated for a minute if the air temperature is above 10°C and the XC60 will to take you just about anywhere, given the correct tyres; imagine, then, what would happen if you'd bought one from a used car dealer out of warranty or Motorplan?
I own a collection of classic cars - no electronics and all carburettors. And I can go 120km/h as easily as with a new car - even faster, if the spirit ever moved me - but, best of all, I can fix my classics at the side of the road.
At R515 000, the Volvo XC60 3.0T Geartronic is not cheap, but it's competitive in its bracket. Cape Argus Motoring