What is it?
How predictable is the new Volvo V60, you wonder? It’s another great-looking Volvo estate, based on a big-Volvo platform, and it’ll go head-to-head with the BMW 3 Series Touring and Mercedes-Benz C-Class Estate, blah, et cetera and so on: how close would we get if we had to phone in the verdict? Not that we would, obviously. Don’t send letters.
Here we are, though, with the fifth model based on Volvo’s Scalable Product Architecture (SPA). With each new one comes with an increasing dose of familiarity. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you – they’re efficient, they’re elegant and, as Volvo discovers how to get the most out the hardware, each is a little better than the last.
It’s three years since Volvo launched the latest Volvo XC90, which was rapidly followed by the Volvo XC60, Volvo S90 and Volvo V90 (and the Volvo XC40, on a smaller platform). So it has been quite busy. Now the V60 estate, then, of which there’ll be an S60 saloon version in the summer, thus rounding out the big SPA range.
Is it the same story as the other SPA cars, then? Certainly in technical terms. The V60 has a mostly steel monocoque, double wishbones and coil springs at the front, an integral link with transverse, composite leaf spring at the rear and transverse front-mounted engines of nothing more than four cylinders or two litres, driving the front wheels through a six-speed manual or eight-speed automatic gearbox. Two different plug-in hybrid versions will come later, as will four-wheel drive. So far, so Volvo.
For now, you can get 148bhp and 187bhp diesels (D3 and D4) and a 247bhp petrol (T5, automatic only), all available in Momentum, Momentum Pro, Inscription and Inscription Pro trim levels. So far, we’ve only driven the D4 Inscription auto, which is priced from £37,600 and officially capable of 69.2mpg, although on the 19in wheels of our test car, those figures increase by £550 and drop by 9.1mpg.
Volvo's consistency doesn't end there. Externally, the V60 could be nothing but a modern Volvo – which is fine. Better than fine, even. The 3 Series/C-Class/Audi A4 Avant class is for thrusting executives, so this “smallest and lightest” of the SPA cars, designer Lisa Reeves tells me, has been sculpted accordingly, with strong belt lines, extreme raked edges to lower grille, “determined, interlocked” headlights and horizontal accents lines to accentuate the car’s width.
“It’s not super muscly, but toned,” Reeves says, because Volvo doesn’t do aggression, per se. Perhaps that’s why, as CEO HÃ¥kan Samuelsson tells us, Volvo owners crash 50% less than the average driver and have a 50% better credit rating than average. Honestly, who does this kind of research?
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Another 3 Series, A4 and C Class beater from Volvo
Enough said really and it's another car from Volvo whose entire model range now betters their equivalent rivals from Audi, BMW, Mercedes and VW. But then many other manufacturers do too.
Is it me or does the bonnet
Is it me or does the bonnet (like many of the current Volvos) look excessively long, when you consider that all it has is a transverse 2 litre engine under the bonnet?
Good for looks, not for space efficiency though
Not you
And unlike BMW there's no plans to have anything other than a 4 pot engine I'm as coonfused as you
"Hence the V60 has the
"Hence the V60 has the biggest boot in the class, at 529/1441 litres. "
Seriously????
An Octavia hatchback has a boot size of 590 litres/1580 litres - the estate has 610/1740 litres!
Digging further - a Peugeot 308 estate has an admittedly impressive 660/1775 litres!
So what class are you judging it against? Superminis?
WallMeerkat wrote:
Digging even further, a Fabia estate has a surprisingly similar 530/1395 litres.
So let's assume that you are comparing a mid range luxury Volvo to a Skoda supermini, and seats up it loses by a litre, only beating it with the seats down.
WallMeerkat wrote:
compared to compact premium wagons ofcourse, A4, 3, C-class, not mainstream wagons which are not direct rivals...
volvocu wrote:
If you are going to buy a car based upon quoted boot volume, check out the vehicle first. The Germans who measure boot space using the DIN method can remove everything from the vehicle, so floors, carpets, spear wheels, seatbelt pretensioners, everything and then measure the space by volume. They are also allowed to measure the boot space up to the height of the rear seat - so you put the head rest up and the boot volume goes up - all acceptable ways of measuring volume. Not every manufacture measures boot space in the same way and for some reason the manufactures who are clearly misrepresenting useable space (who is going to take out the carpets in the boot? who?) never get called out in articles. Check out the other car reviews where they show the measured internal dimensions of the boot, the largest number from multiplying width, height and depth is the largest boot size, but unfortunately that is not correlated with the figures produced from the DIN method. Physics is unfortunately a hard beast to get around but it seems automotive journalists are not detail orientated people. Volvo quotes to the window line I believe so could be rather different to its German competitors.