The adaptive cruise control is definitely worthy of mention in the S80. The cruise control buttons are conveniently located on the upper left spoke of the steering wheel.

At first glance, they might be perplexing but once you take a few seconds to analyse what those buttons mean, you'll find that this function comes in very handy, especially for those ventures up north.

You are able to set your cruising speed, as well as the distance of the car in front of you. The latter takes priority when the car finds itself closing in to the rear of a car in front of you at too rapid a speed. Then, the Volvo then decelerates the car to maintain a safe following distance.

This worked really well when we were on any highway that wasn't so populated. Alas, the recommended minimum SAFE distance proved to be too far from the car in front of us during peak period situations, where lots of lane cutting and braking is involved.

Safely said, no one should be using the cruise control function at this situation, and we were just being the itchy behinds that we usually are.

It got really irritating when we found that cars kept cutting in front of our car due to the rather lengthy, minimum (for peak period situations that is) following distance from the car in front of us, causing the S80 to further decelerate itself, and then taking an even longer time to accelerate and compensate.

We aren't complaining though, as I thoroughly enjoyed my morning cup of coffee during the drive up to a nearby destination in Johor Baru, with the ACC on in the Volvo, without so much as a drop of it being spilt.

Also, very rarely would you expect cars like these to have good steering feedback, but pay a little bit more attention and you would realise the amount of detail it gives. It would be as if it were gently whispering, “There’s a little bump over here” and “the road surface here’s a little rougher”.

Steering response is a little bit light when driving fast but it feels sturdy and confident. And so is the braking. Gently prod it and you wouldn’t slow down much, but go a little harder on it and you soon find yourself almost coming to a standstill.

At the end of the day, after a hard day at work and a soothing drive home, one might forget to lock the car. And there’s no need to panic.

If you’re not too far from the car, just reach into your pocket and you can find out from the Personal Car Communicator if you had locked it, or even if someone’s in your car, thanks to its heartbeat sensor. What a thing!

Credits: Andy Hum, Amery Reuben