It happened.. Not the first time but to my dismay it did. In return a lot came back.
Decided to trade the Volvo V60 Polestar after almost two and half year of ownership. Several reasons to do so. One of the reasons was the performance of the car. Coming from a Lexus IS-F the performance of the Polestar was not overwhelming. For a Volvo I think it has been Volvo’s best effort except most of the effort came from Polestar, not Volvo. During the two and a half years Volvo acquired Polestar and the new 2017 now VolvoPolestar received a 4 cylinder engine. It wasn’t the only change but I only could lay my finger on it after I traded the V60. The thing was that the V60’s feel was good. With the high torque of the engine combined with the suspension there was this feeling in the car you can expect from these types of cars. Up to roughly 100 miles per hour the car was great fun and had what I like to call gravity. The car want’s to stick to the road. If for whatever reason the car loosens it’s feet it will fall down to earth immediately after. This behaviour is less pronounced in the 2017 models where I think the Polestar has been “Volvotised” to much. Although the suspension it the same there is a more floaty regular Volvo feel in the car. Although the 2017 Volvo S60 Polestar is a lot faster there is less torque feel also which contributes to the more standard Volvo feel. In this area I think the 2017 Polestar lost it’s edge. Another reason not to look for a V60 successor in Volvo’s lineup.
Next there was depreciation. The Volvo V60 Polestar not being popular in my country plus the fact that it is an above average polluter brought fear about the resale value of this car. Basically I had decided to keep this car until the next Polestar Engineered revelation but this turned ugly very fast.
Being the Volvo nut I am I was really hurt or offended learning that Volvo wanted to go all electric for the future. Polestar refusing to discuss the future didn’t make it easier. At the time it was all rumours. During this time I took the Volvo S60 Polestar to the track. A very fun car to drive but there were problems. Problems can happen but the way Volvocars in the Netherlands decided to address these problems was horrible. Insulting for the customer. It taught me Volvocars does not want to market the Polestar type of cars. It opened my eyes, shattered my pink glasses and it was clear my type of customer wasn’t appreciated anymore.
Polestar AB tried to rescue the situation but they had to remind me that although they only market their race heritage the VolvoPolestar cars are not to be used on a track. For me the Polestar engineered car lost all of it’s credibility at that moment.
Time to move on. Remembering the great days with the Lexus IS-F I concluded I was happy with that concept. Problem is that Lexus discontinued the IS-F and only offers bloated RC-F’s and GS-F’s nowadays. There are several other cars coming close to the IS-F one being the new BMW M3 which I happened to stumble upon a while ago.
Sitting in a showroom nearby it was almost love at first sight. The trade conditions sealed the deal.
Volvo V60 Polestar engineered car out, BMW F80 M3 Competition Package in.
Leave a Reply