Volvo V60 road test
Written By Lee Sibbald Published On: Sep 10 2010Volvo is best known for its super-practical estates, which makes the new V60 a radical departure for the Swedish firm. It says the V60 is a sports wagon, not an estate, and that load lugging is not the central tenet of this model. Sounds like marketing bunkum to us as the V60’s key rivals are the Audi A4 Avant, BMW 3 Series Touring and Mercedes C-Class Estate – all of them estates.
Volvo has a reputation for offering powerful engines in its compact cars and the V60 is not different. The range-topping petrol motor is a 3.0-litre six-cylinder engine packing a turbocharger and 300bhp for 0-62mph in 6.6 seconds, with performance only held back from being quicker by a standard six-speed automatic gearbox. A more realistic option for customers is the 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol used in the T5 model that comes with 236bhp and the choice of six-speed manual or auto gearboxes. This V60 model squares off 0-62mph in 7.9 seconds and is the best of the faster petrol pair as it has all of the oomph without crippling economy and emissions. Petrol buyers interested in better economy and emissions will be tempted by Volvo’s new 1.6-litre turbo petrol that has 148- or 177bhp depending on whether you choose the T3 or T4 model. They are both refined and offer plenty of punch and, for the first time in the Swedish firm’s history, can be ordered with a twin-clutch gearbox as an alternative to the standard manual six-speeder. As for diesels, these will make up the bulk of sales and Volvo expects the DRIVe model and its 113bhp 1.6-litre turbodiesel that uses Stop/Start technology to account for around half of all V60 sales due to its appeal to company drivers. However, this engine doesn’t come on stream till the spring of 2011, so in the meantime buyers can pick between the 2.0- and 2.4-litre five-cylinder turbodiesels with 161- and 202bhp offers in the D3 and D5 models respectively. They each have bags of punch off the line and pull cleanly through the gears, though neither is as refined as its rivals from the German premium trio.
Read the full Volvo V60 road test on RoadTestReports.co.uk
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