What It's Like to Live with an Aston Martin DB12 Volante (POV)

Hey crew, I've got the key to this Aston Martin DB12 Volante and today we're going to see what it's like to live with. Starting with the spacing in my driveway which is 16 feet wide by 19 and a half feet long, I've got the DB12 parked about six inches from the edge on this side sitting next to a new Hyundai Santa Fe that my wife is reviewing. If you want to check out her content it's at She's got that parked just about an inch from the edge. Nice parking job honey. And with that spacing there's plenty of room to walk between the two vehicles and both of them have power folding door mirrors that helps. Though if I wanted to get our double stroller through for our kids I would need the Aston just a couple inches that direction. The nose of the vehicle is right there at the beginning of my driveway and that leaves plenty of room at the back to walk behind and in front of the hedge on my way to the front door. To get inside the DB12 with the key fob in my pocket I just push my finger on this portion of the door handle that will unfold the door mirrors unlock the doors and then I can swing this door just as far as I want to because it'll pause wherever I stop it right there just before touching the Santa Fe. That's a really wide opening here though with the top up I do need to crouch down quite a bit first sitting on the sill then craning my neck and then scooting over. That's a pretty wide shelf there though so that makes it pretty easy. To close the door I do have to firmly shut it because even on this $335,000 as tested vehicle there isn't a soft close function as standard you have to pay extra for that. Hey cabin crew thanks for joining for this day in the life in the Aston Martin DB12 Volante. Now in this video I want to see if a convertible version of a Grand Tourer such as this is better than a coupe version and in what ways. I'll begin by showing you something that admittedly will be the same between coupe and convertible. That's where I've stashed items that I brought with me so my GoPro accessories which are of decent size do fit nicely in this door pocket though I can't swing that out too much or they will slide out. I've got my smartphone on this hidden wireless charging pad under the console and then in the console I do have a standard single-use water bottle I could not fit my large water bottle anywhere in this cabin that's just sitting there I've got my wallet and my sunglasses and the outside of that console is felt line so I'm not going to scratch the lenses there. Now let me fire up this DB12 Volante. Hello to you Twin Turbo V8 now let's hear that idle from outside the vehicle so the door handle is just this tiny little thing nestled in right there oh what a sweet melody the throaty V8 it's actually not that loud no it's deep so it might reverberate to my neighbors nearby but I don't think anyone's gonna be too upset by that startup noise. Okay as I get going here once again this is a lot of money for a car and I feel like things like automatic seat heating or ventilation should be part of the equation and yet it's indicated to be 65 degrees Fahrenheit outside the vehicle while the climate inside is set for 70 yet no seat heating has been triggered on automatically I'd have to do that manually and I do have three levels of that and this is kind of cool I can do the seat ventilation at the same time why would you ever want to do that Miles? Well just think about it you've got a cool breeze on your bottom and yet your back is being heated just to the perfect temperature it's just kind of a great recipe but again should be done automatically in this car. The next thing I'm going to do is configure the drive mode and make sure I'm in the right one there's a GT a Sport and a Sport Plus but I'm not going to choose any of those no I want the individual mode because here I can customize and set the throttle response the exhaust level the start stop system the steering response and and heft and the suspension firmness I've got the suspension as soft as possible and yet I got a little extra punch from the throttle response here and now I'm going to go down into drive the parking brake over here has been disengaged I'm going to roll forward there isn't a front end lift system on the DB12 Volante and I think there really should be again for this kind of money but because I have the curve ramps there I'm not too worried about the clearance of the low lip but can I clear the trash cans yes I do have that front facing camera to make sure of it. Today's first task will be to get a cup of coffee but on my way there I want to talk through some of the things you'll interact with most often in the DB12 like the turn signal and the stock for that has been pulled straight out of some Mercedes Benz and so it's therefore more plasticky than I think befits this caliber of car but the action is nice and what about the sound of the signal oh I like that it's it's rhythmic as most signals are but it's got a sultry tone to it and the turning radius for a u-turn now is okay without a rear wheel steering system in this DB12 it's wider than some of its competitors but I think only in tighter spaces would you really mind and now what if someone cuts me off in this DB12 and I have to go to the horn what's that going to sound like well it's loud enough but it's also a crass sound as for throttle response in the individual mode with that sport calibration it it's perky enough gets me up to speed quick I mean there's 671 horsepower but it's not it's not so aggressive in that response so I can gracefully make my way up to speed and what about the ride quality that is not a perfect road surface and I know that more than visually because I can feel a lot of those bumps and corrections of the road in through my seats more so than I think most GT cars now being on 21 inch wheels and low profile tires that doesn't help but on the flip side the seats are extremely comfortable they just hold me perfectly in place they have quite a bit of adjustability I've got good thigh support good lumbar the leather is supple padding is too and I've got good space in this cabin even at six feet tall with the top up I still inches above my head I feel like there's there's room to operate here lots of tilt and telescope to the wheel easy to direct the car down the road good feedback through that wheel as well and now as I go to the brake hear those downshifts I feel some of those changes as well but the braking is still smooth at last it's time for coffee and I felt the drive-through experience was necessary to demonstrate one of the advantages of a convertible grand tour over a coupe because this is the coupe experience there isn't obviously a top that can go down it's just a fixed roof so the way you would access something given to you at a drive-through is just through this window here but in a convertible one that stows in just 16 seconds I have all of this room to reach up and grab hi there may please have a decaf iced latte in the grande size yeah I'm ordering a decaf latte because uh caffeine and I we don't get along it's like it it hates me and I don't know why as I pause here momentarily in the drive-through I want to point out the lack of an auto hold function in the dv12 that would allow me to take my foot off the brake not have to engage park to just kind of rest for a minute but alas I have to hold my foot on the brake it's so difficult however one thing you do have in the dv12 that I showed briefly was the surround view camera system so I can make sure I've got that top view and then I've got the side views I can make sure that I am not going to get too close on either side to the curving there keep these precious 21 inch wheels safe and here we are hello yes please thank you very much you too see what I mean so much easier than a coupe and having a top that folds isn't just a great way to get stuff at a drive-thru it's also the best way to experience the db12's twin turbo v8 in addition to the thrust you're getting the full effect of that v8 theater what a noise what momentum my goodness oh the acceleration's brutal and now to use the paddles in manual mode oh the speed of the shifts are good the feel of the paddles the engagement this is a monstrously fast car and the wind gust tells me so not bad at it thrilled by it yeah it may ride a little firmer than your average gt car but your average gt car doesn't have overrun and punch like this and after you've gotten going very quickly there are some excellent carbon ceramic brakes to slow you back down and some fantastic handling to match wow this thing can take the corners it's still pretty heavy but it can control its body admirably but you won't have a canyon to carve up every day what you will have is a stoplight or some other real world situation to test the zero to 60 of your db12 volante so i've got my race box set up here to record this run i can activate launch control holding my foot on the brake pinning the throttle building up the go and there's 60 in 3.5 seconds any quicker and it would rip my shirt off with the acceleration then the car wouldn't be the only thing that's topless okay uh i think it's time to bring the pace back down before i collect mobile mama for a bit of lunch welcome my dear aren't you a sight for sore eyes are you appreciating the breeze that we don't have right now this is a perfect day for a convertible top yes it is that it's not too hot outside now it's 69 degrees couldn't be any better actually 70 right on the nose would be perfect and that's why we pay a lot to live in california do we pay too much but i am sad that i don't get to experience the warm hands warm feet you could have warm cabin oh if experience if it was cooler in the snow that would be fun uh yeah but it's rear drive this car so i don't think you'd want to be in the snow in this car but how do you feel about the seats it's my big question you know i love aston martin's a lot of people i mean it's a gorgeous color like oh you like the color i was gonna ask about that the sea foam green they call it a caribbean something oh i'm i'm extending out like this is so comfy what is going on what i don't know heck i didn't even know you could do this yeah is this allowed can we go for a longer drive no because you don't have time because i have to film you after this yeah we have to put this is our lives this is the real world of our lives i gotta film you after you film with me um yeah but the seats are comfortable no so comfy yeah what else do they do is there a massage no massage oh heating and ventilation no massage okay for 300 and well it starts at three i figured you get this nice open poor wood though how do you feel about the ride i think it's kind of lacking in that department i thought you were saying like compared to like a supercar or something no compared to a supercar yeah it's velvety but it's it's a little bit uh jostly for a for a grand tour there's some vibration on the booty but it's it's not terrible that's your massage free of charge feel the road vibrate your buns now what would you like for your not free of charge meal what you eat a light fish meal you thinking fish yeah i'm also thinking fish i want some pescado okay or as they say in spain pescado i was also thinking fish but i was thinking fish because it's like i don't know open air breeze makes you think of the ocean and then i'm like what do you get the ocean you fish eat fish you spirit yourself cook it over the fire we're not gonna do that but we should never done that i've never never in my life that's accurate never nor would an aston martin owner do that that's fair fair but an aston martin owner would eat some fancy fish so let's go eat some more pedestrian priced fish because we don't own this aston martin we don't and here we are pacific catch the perfect spearfish no no perfect cast from goofy i can't keep up with you honestly i don't want to keep well well well i mean that's like a good portion of food i got the double protein on my hawaiian poke bowl and this is now that i'm looking at it no typically yes but this is kind of out of control are you ready let's dive in that was an aggressive amount of food so much uh you borrowed the dv12 briefly while i was ordering the food and ran a target real quick and you had thoughts about what it was like to drive i wanted to love it but i i mean i do love it but it was difficult to see out the back like they're huge blinds with the top on i love it with the top off with the top on yeah there are blind spots i mean first of all trying to see out the rear view there's just like this little slit you can see that there are cars there but you have no idea how close they are or even what the vehicles are exactly and then right here over your shoulder the headrest is blocking the side window and then with the top up there's that just giant blind spot there you do a blind spot monitoring and the door mirror is actually pretty big for a sports car like this but that's not the only issue it's like the hood is raised up so it's hard to tell where the front of the vehicle is unless you have that camera going it could be an issue to see out with the top up all the more reason to just live life as much as possible with the top down no blind spots now just some great views keep your eyes on the road it's a new day with the db12 and i've got a couple errands to run first it's off to the post office and then to the grocery store and each time i restart the db12 i proceed down the road for approximately 30 seconds before i'm reminded of a feature that i need to turn off and that's the one you just heard the speed limit warning it's something that you go into the infotainment system you go to assistance and you scroll down here to traffic sign assist and then you choose either visual and audible visual or off and even if you switch it off you turn off the vehicle you turn it back on it's right back on with the visual and audible warning and if you're going to know for one mile per hour it's going to chime at you and it will do so every time the speed limit changes and we have arrived at the post office let's go buy some stamps and there we are freedom flags in my british grand tour off to groceries and the first of two grocery stops will be here at trader joe's i've got two lightly loaded bags from tjs and so we're going to see how they fit in the trunk of the db12 volante and there is no kick sensor or anything more convenient that's it it just releases doesn't pop up it's not a power opening trunk oh boy all right and this is the storage space that i have to work with just working around this wind deflector and i do think that's going to be fine for this shopping trip but uh see how we do with the second one at sprouts as it turns out we just got one more bag to add to the trunk but given the limited space even that's kind of a problem because i got ships i definitely don't want those crushed what can we do kind of angled like that it does have a soft close but why not a power opening closed whatever it fits a small double grocery trip it's turning into another gorgeous day and i'm not going to let this one pass me by without taking the convertible version of this db12 to where it can shine i'm going to go to the beach and on my way there we can talk about what it's like to drive on the highway so first let's listen to the cabin volume i'm going to quiet up for a second now typically fabric top versions of convertibles are much louder than an equivalent hard top convertible or of course a coupe but this fabric top in the db12 volante is eight layers thick so really very modest the volume in here the wind noise is kept low the tire noise is a factor i hear a decent amount of that coming into the cabin but the rest of the road noise isn't a whole lot louder than most coupe gt cars and that's really impressive and that's just if i'm listening to nothing which is not going to be typical you probably want to listen to music so let's do that now and there is a wireless carplay system with this new infotainment that is designed by aston martin as opposed to being borrowed from mercedes-benz like the turn signal stock so let's uh cue something up like that there's a volume dial here not having to touch the screen so okay yeah that's that's quite good it's completely blocking out the rest of the noise that was making its way into the cabin and the sound was clear this is a nine speaker sound system you can upgrade to a bowers and wilkins 15 speaker unit for a lot more money but i don't think you need to that's a really quality sound system and now i am experiencing some stop and go so i'm going to activate the adaptive cruise control system and see how that works there is also a highway assist system in theory that would keep you centered in the lane but even though i go to the assistant setting and try to activate the highway assist it doesn't want to work and i've played with all the different settings i've been stopped i've had the vehicle turned off turned back on that doesn't want to work so instead i'm just going to use the lane assist and we'll see that it does bring me back into the lane but it's then going to move over to the left side if the road will curve it's not going to do the centering stuff but supposedly that is equipped with this vehicle and so having the adaptive cruise to let me take my foot off the brake and throttle and having the highway assist to reduce some of the fatigue of centering myself in the lane that'll really help if you're using the db12 as a commuter but it looks like my commute's over because i spy some ocean yonder and that means it's time to drop this top which i can do it speeds up to 31 miles per hour so as i slow i can start the process now of course i have to keep it under 31 until it's done there we go up come the windows and there's that sunshine this is a convertible in its natural environment and at these speeds there's wind buffeting for sure i feel it down here even by my hands not just up by the top of my head we saw yesterday christina's hair going all over the place in the passenger seat so there is another way to reduce that but i will need to stop go into the trunk and pull out that wind deflector after retrieving the case from the trunk and retrieving the deflector i've got some install instructions stitched here so i don't lose them and that seems pretty easy it's going to unfold this connect that line up the tabs with the seat belt inlets and then come to each side to connect those pieces and it's done that was really easy i don't expect owners to do that every time they lower the lid but at least the process is straightforward and you may not want to keep this in the trunk at all times because that cargo space is precious that's more like it the turbulent moving air now stays just at the top of my head not down here inside the cabin and look at these views well i've uh i've done smarter things in my life but the gopro is pretty much okay so onward and it's back to relaxing where i can enjoy the views the from down here look i'm all about coupe versions of track cars but when you're talking about a touring car such as this and you live in a place like southern california why would you ever sacrifice the potential of an open top experience to have the coupe and on that note i need to make a pit stop at one of my favorite places in this area and i think you'll like it too and here it is thousand steps beach why is it called thousand steps well not a thousand steps but uh sure are a lot of them captain's log still descending and look at my reward yeah southern california sure is expensive but it might be worth it i forgot about going back up before i conclude my impressions on this db12 volante i need to put some fuel back in this 20.5 gallon tank and the fuel economy is rated by the epa at 14 mpg in the city 22 on the highway and 17 combined now if i saw that 17 combined then i'd have about 348 miles of range but over the last 150 miles i've really been seeing 12.1 miles per gallon and at current fuel prices of $5.49 for 91 octane fuel it's going to cost me 113 bucks to fill this tank but is it capless fueling it is you know what i haven't done up until now is mention these rear seats which will be perfect for legless passengers or cargo well crew at the beginning of this video i pondered if and how the convertible version of a grand touring car was better than a coupe and after a good amount of time behind the wheel driving fast driving slow top up and top down i know without a doubt that the drop top is the dream play however that doesn't mean this db12 volante is a perfect daily driver the firm for a gt ride poor visibility small trunk and lack of several convenience features for its hefty 339 000 price tag aren't deal breakers but they are worthy of consideration juxtapose that with a set of ultra comfy seats stunning looks especially in the right color combination abundant power a quiet cabin and on-demand vitamin d yeah i would not kick this db12 volante out of my own driveway i hope you guys have enjoyed this pov day in life and i'll see you again next time