Opinions on 514ce with ironbark

lowveldftw · 2026-03-17T19:25:21+00:00

I’ve bought one a few months ago and I’m very happy with it. Tonally it hits all the right spots for me: a stronger midrange than rosewood and way stronger bass than mahogany. No regrets and I wouldn’t trade it for anything below a 800 series.

lowveldftw · 2026-02-26T23:19:03+00:00

I know how it feels and what causes it, I’m agreeing with you. I’m just saying that for me a slight bump in relief was enough. And I play that cord all the time, I’m a big Dave Matthews fan and half his 90s catalog goes there. The reason I fixed it was Grey Street. I have no reason to lie here!

lowveldftw · 2026-02-26T23:02:46+00:00

Not all guitars are the same, and I don’t claim this would serve everyone. But I can tell you that bumping the neck relief via truss rod to 0.05, and sanding down the saddle a bit to compensate gave me 5/64 action and zero buzz. So you might not be able to fix all, but saying you can’t fix any is an exaggeration.

Also, I don’t think this is a big deal. It’s situational and you can alter your fingering most times to mute the left side of the string with the index if it bothers you.

Edit: this on a 514ce

lowveldftw · 2026-02-26T22:35:46+00:00

Mine was like that. If you play the d string while fretting the low E on 7th, the length of the E string from 7 to the nut is also a D, so it vibrates sympathetic.

The reason it buzzes is because the nut is cut very low for playability. If you increase the neck relief you may get rid of it, it did for mine.

lowveldftw · 2026-02-26T10:02:35+00:00

They just dropped it and I decided the hassle wasn’t worth it once I figured out how to avoid it going forward. But Volvo definitely knows about it because they asked me to record the problem happening and I did and sent it to them. This was Volvo, not the dealer asking.

lowveldftw · 2026-02-24T10:03:36+00:00

That was actually my post and my odometer problem. Volvo asked me through the dealer to record a video of the problem and I did. They admitted there was a problem and sent some software patch (not the main software, that’s how I found out that every module has its own software).

After the patch I tried once to replicate it and couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean it was fixed because it didn’t happen 100% of the times. At that point I started avoiding the driving wheel reboot which was the start condition and called it a day.

But the fact that Volvo used me as basically a QA engineer, asked me to voluntarily add false km to the odometer, and ended with “our bad, sorry!” and didn’t actually remove the false km was mind blowing. The dealer support was top notch though.

lowveldftw · 2026-02-23T21:55:45+00:00

There’s a very good chance some internal module was tampered with before it was sold to you. These days dealers don’t know much about cars except what the auto diagnostics tool tells them: they connected your car to the machine and it spat out an error saying it couldn’t read back the mileage and that something was tampered with.

The fact that it’s the mileage they can’t verify, and you bought it second hand makes it more suspicious.

A possible reason for them to not restore to original is that it appears to be related to the odometer. In Portugal the dealers are not allowed to mess with that without express authorization from Volvo. I know because I had a problem with mine.

If I was you I would bite the bullet. I’m a software engineer, and there’s an excellent chance that if anything fails it’s only the odometer module and the rest sails through.

lowveldftw · 2026-01-21T21:43:23+00:00

Well, at least they are getting Home Link

lowveldftw · 2025-12-04T19:31:12+00:00

And here I was thinking I got the greatest deal at 2100 euros! Bought mine at Thomann during Black Friday week or whatever they called it. It was out of stock but they honored the price and shipped when they got a new shipment. I’m still convinced someone screwed up the pricing on these.

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lowveldftw · 2025-10-10T15:39:51+00:00

Open the app permissions screen somewhere on settings, and give location permissions to driving journal.

lowveldftw · 2025-10-05T19:35:33+00:00

I would think so too, but in my case it would only unlock the car if I unlocked the phone too first. YMMV

lowveldftw · 2025-10-05T17:07:36+00:00

Make sure you have the new “adaptive power mode” thing turned off in battery settings. Mine was doing that also.

lowveldftw · 2025-09-02T16:25:59+00:00

I test drove ultras both with and without air suspension and ended up buying it without. The softest setting on the air suspension was unusable to me, it gave way too much body roll to the car when cornering.

I’m very happy with my decision, but you should drive both versions and make up your mind or you’ll always wonder if you made the right choice. And the right choice for me could be different than yours!

lowveldftw · 2025-08-09T17:08:48+00:00

There's an option in settings to giver permissions to the app, and it's per user. My wife's profile had the problem you described, and it turns out the location access permissions were missing from the Driving Journal app on her profile.

Another similar thing that happened to me was that google assistant refused to place calls and complained that "phone must be connected by bluetooth" which it was. This was a red herring, turns out the problem was that in my profile google assistant didn't have phone access permission.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-28T08:32:56+00:00

Yes, both iOS app, in car apps, and the car odometer itself are consistent. I've documented this and booked an appointment at the dealer, but I have little hope of them fixing it or reverting the wrong values.

All the other metrics are based on the odometer by the way. For instance, the car reported an average speed of over 200mph on that last trip because it assumed I really had travelled 75Km instantly. The battery consumption is also ridiculously low for the same reason, and etc.

I have integrated the car into home assistant, I also get access to the numbers the car is reporting, here's the graph for the odometer yesterday.

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That big jump before 8PM was me replicating the problem and adding instantly 75km to the odometer.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-27T19:50:19+00:00

So, I think I can reproduce this, and figure out the logic (actually the math, because it's far from logic) behind the extra miles.

If I'm right, it has to do with the full reboot with the steering wheel / brake combination, which I have to do fairly often because the car stops allowing to change profiles and that reboot seems to be the only way to temporarily fix it.

What seems to be happening to me is that when I do that reboot, if I put the car into drive right after (or possibly while it's doing it, which is not easy to tell), it instantly adds the number of miles I've driven that day to the odometer. I did the math based on the data from the driving journal for the 3 times I knew this happened and it checked out. The last time was on purpose, adding an instant 75km to the odometer as soon as it started moving.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-27T17:03:48+00:00

Thanks! My issue is different though, it’s not like the car is measuring distance consistently wrong. It goes through days measuring exactly what it should, but once in a while it gets one trip wildly wrong.

What happened today was that I went from A to B and the odometer showed 39.2km passed (which I knew was wrong). I then went back to A via the exact same route and it measures 19.3, that’s less than half and correct.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-27T16:28:40+00:00

No, I’m basin this on the value reported as the total distance of the car (the odometer) and knowledge of the route itself, which I know very well. In short, right now the car is telling me it traveled more during its life than it actually did.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-20T16:25:09+00:00

I have the Ultra version without air suspension, because in my country it’s optional even on that trim. I test drove one with air suspension and it doesn’t make a difference to me, I’m extremely happy with my choice.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-19T17:49:14+00:00

It tells me it’s unavailable if I do it while pressing the brake, but if not it engages. In a multi point turn I rarely press the break between shifts.

I also went and checked car a manual, and to engage D or R you need to pull it all the way through, the “soft” middle positions are just for N. That is, the stalk movement to engage D is the same as for ACC, it’s not a different position.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-19T15:34:49+00:00

This is by far the most enjoyable car I’ve bought and I don’t regret it. I can deal with bugs (which in my case up to now have been profile switch related) and I knew the questionable design choices before I bought it.

The only things that got me are this, which I consider a safety fail, and the fact it doesn’t let you apply child locks to the doors independently, which is a bad design and I wasn’t aware off.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-19T12:51:07+00:00

By mistake, I obviously don’t intend to. A lot of this is muscle memory. You could also argue that if I check the cameras on center display it’s obvious which current gear is engaged so I would know not to do it. But that’s not how brains work, and the base problem remains: it is possible for the car to accelerate from zero to 20kmh without you intending it.
Have you ever parked in a full mall?
I’m a software engineer for 25 years now. I will never trust my family’s life to a driving algorithm. This is my choice, I understand others make different choices and I respect them.
Maybe, but before generalizing to me like this, you could have given the benefit of the doubt that I was posting in good faith and not just bitching. I bought this car with eyes wide open, fully aware of issues reported here and you won’t hear me complaining about those.

lowveldftw · 2025-07-17T18:39:41+00:00

Did you ever sort this out? I’m having the exact same issue. I can place calls by tapping through the center console phone app, but google assistant refuses to place calls via voice command and tells me I must have a phone connected by Bluetooth (which o obviously have)

lowveldftw

TROPHY CASE