So I’ve come to the end of this review. What are my final thoughts? I thought the S60 is a great sedan. It’s a great daily driver. But if you want to have some fun, it’s got the handling and power to do that too. Plus it’s got a ton of technology that makes your life simpler and safer.
One thing I should do is show you is the shot of groceries in the trunk to illustrate to you how much space this trunk has:
As you can see, this trunk is huge. There is a lot of space left over when we put our groceries into it.
The final fuel economy that I got was 12.1 L/ 100 KM. I could have done better, but I made liberal use of the 300 horsepower and 325 pound feet of torque that was available to my right foot. I have to admit that having that much power is fun to have. Though it will cost you at the gas pump.
What is all this going to cost you? Well, the particular S60 T6 AWD variant had a lot of option boxes checked. Thus it came up to a grand total of $57,350. But if you want something at a lower price point, the S60 starts at just under $37,750 with FWD and a Drive-E 5 cylinder engine under the hood. How does that stack up to the competition? At the start of this review, I listed the following as competition:
- BMW 3-Series
- Lexus IS
- Mercedes-Benz C-Class
- Audi A4
- Cadillac ATS
Having driven everything except the Audi A4, I can say the following. I think the S60 performs and handles better than the Mecedes-Benz C-Class and the Lexus IS as those cars are slanted slightly more towards a luxurious ride rather than balancing that ride with performance. That’s not to say that they are soft. But the S60 in a performance situation is better than those two while giving the ride that people expect in this segment. When it comes to the Cadillac ATS BMW 3-Series, I think it matches up well against them as those two cars and the S60 have the balance between ride and performance right. From a technology standpoint, I think the Volvo beats them all because of City Safety. Once you’ve experienced the sort of safety that this or any Volvo model comes with, it makes it hard to go back to any vehicle that doesn’t have it. That’s its ace in the hole.
Now having driven the 2013 version of the S60, I can say that the 2014 model has evolved nicely and I believe that drivers will appreciate all the changes. Starting from the paddle shifters all the way to the new Volvo styling, It’s a good improvement to an already good vehicle. If you’re in the market for a luxury sport sedan, take a trip to your local Volvo dealer and test drive an S60. Plus have them demo City Safety for you and take some time to look it over in detail. I truly think you’ll be putting your hard earned money down for one.
Heartbleed Bug Responsible For Stolen Personal Data: CRA
Posted in Commentary with tags Canada, Hacked, Security on April 14, 2014 by itnerdThe Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) I think has some explaining to do. You might recall that they had to shut down their website due to the heartbleed bug (followed later last week by other Canadian Government departments). Now it seems that data was stolen. Here’s what The Globe And Mail had to say:
The RCMP is now investigating the breach, the CRA said in a statement released Monday morning following a six-day closing of its Web filing services.
Each person whose SIN was stolen will be notified by registered mail, the CRA said.
The agency won’t say when the breach occurred – whether it was during the two years during which the bug went undetected, or during the 24-hour gap between the public revelation of Heartbleed’s existence and the CRA’s shutdown of its websites last week.
Nor would the CRA explain how it determined what SINs were hacked, since Heartbleed intrusions are hard to detect.
“Based on our analysis to date, Social Insurance Numbers (SIN) of approximately 900 taxpayers were removed from CRA systems by someone exploiting the Heartbleed vulnerability,” the CRA communiqué said. “We are currently going through the painstaking process of analyzing other fragments of data, some that may relate to businesses, that were also removed.”
So, this is why they have some explaining to do. If we assume that anyone who exploits heartbleed would leave no trace, does that mean that the information was already used by evil doers and that’s how the CRA found out? Or do the CRA have other means for detecting intrusions. I would like to think that the latter is true. But seeing as heartbleed has been around for 2 years, the former is true as well. This is why we need to find out the details about this data breach in a completely transparent manner. And we need to know find out sooner rather than later.
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