2011 Volvo V60 T4 Review

Nobody is content with their age. The young and juvenile will do anything to grow up quickly and start living life, whilst the old will do almost anything they can to regain their youth. It's one of the overriding themes of life and it's a thought which springs to mind when I muse over Volvo's 2011 V60 sports wagon.

It's not just a sports "wagon" either. No, the Swedish manufacturer have labelled this big-booty estate - as we call it here - with the keyword dynamic. Is it just a buzz word? Perhaps. But it's only once you spend a week with the car, as I was lucky enough to do, that you realise that the V60 possibly does contain that special change agent which allows it to morph from a sedate family man, into a B-road blighter. Let me explain.

Volvo is no stranger to a corker of an estate. The 140, 200 and 240 were warmly received and in fact the latter 240 was Volvo's best-selling car from 1975 until 1982. Then they introduced the 850 saloon followed closely by the station wagon. It was the first Volvo model in the States to feature front-wheel drive and an all-aluminium alloy 20-valve straight-five engine and again it topped the sales charts. It helped to stamp Volvo's mark onto the global map and even today, is remembered as one of the true rugged estates ever built.

In our presence today are what remains from the past, evolved into more polished, more modern machines. The V50, V60 and V70 all uphold Volvo's speciality in making estates, sports wagons, whatever you want to call them and what's more is that the R-Design variants manage to pack even more of a visual punch than the standard models. We were able to get a test drive in the V60 R-Design at the beginning of the year and it proved to be a bundle of joy despite a raspy diesel.

Each estate is a little different from the one surrounding it. The V50 aims to bring practicality starting at an OTR price of £19495 whilst the V70 is longer at 4.8 metres with more boot space and a design harking back to the aforementioned glory years.

So where does that leave the V60? Visually, it's easy to understand. The black grille with medallion logo is all Volvo but after that initial flatness, everything seems to have had a face-lift nip and tuck. The headlights seem to have been pulled back whilst the bonnet has a curvier bob to it, complete with hood accent lines which implore your eyes to follow the contours and shapes of this vehicle.

Speaking of front lights, our V60 tester in SE trim, had xenon LED running lights. When the engine was running and turning on the normal beam, the colour difference was noticeable and actually a little irritating for my design-conscious self. Ticking the Winter Pack with Active Bending Lights option in order to get xenons on the main lights would have been a good idea but will run you up £1,025 for the liberty.

Following the Caspian Blue car round to the behind, sleek is one word that instantly springs to mind. The chrome window framing helps to emit that sporty character that everyone wants to see in a dynamic vehicle, and the rump of the boot is rounded and moulded to fit in with the rest of the car's appearance - nothing appears as box-shaped which is the rather large allure of the V60 as opposed to the V70.

However, what this instantly means once you get into the boot and start loading up kids, dogs, prams, sports equipment and the usual household junk, is that interior space is limited. In fact, at a total of 557 litres in boot space you probably won't have as much junk in your trunk as you would have initially thought. And that's dynamic, I hear you say?

Well all is far from lost. What I didn't mention was what a sumptuous interior the V60 has. Decked out in soft beige leather and complete up front with glossy wooden inserts, the vehicle has an air of class about it. The dials and gauges aren't as outright sporty as the logo-embossed, blue-ringed interiors you would find in R-Design counterparts, but nonetheless this is exactly the type of decoration that will appeal to the V60's target market.

Equipment-wise, everything and I mean everything is at your disposal. Let's start with the two thousand pound Premium Pack. For that money, you get a voice activated "Integrated Satellite Navigation System", a high-def 7" colour display screen and DAB Digital Radio. The sat nav itself was full of beans and coupled with the controls on the multi-function steering wheel, made getting your bearings right incredibly easy. A couple of issues I had with it; setting addresses isn't as easy as pie as you have to use the scroller to find the right letters and then access a different menu for numbers - meaning that entering postcodes turned out to be a chore and a half. Secondly, there seemed to be some sort of malfunction during my last days with the car - travelling to Oxford from Bristol, which is usually a 1 hour journey, was calculated by the V60 as being a 3 hour mega-tour. This of course was simply incorrect but it means you won't be able to give an accurate ETA time to your chums.

Heated front seats available with the £385 Winter Pack were extremely useful as temperatures dropped and is an option I would most certainly recommend being ticked. On the other hand, an extra which I probably wouldn't tick if I were you, is the £615 Premium Sound Audio upgrade which according to the opinion of my ears, didn't induce the correct feeling of ecstasy that it should at that kind of dosh price.

Thanks to the £665 Security Pack, starting up your dynamic sports wagon is a doddle. I drilled this point home in our video review which sees me perform a slapstick rendition of "losing your keys". Whilst this probably isn't a daily exercise for anyone with a half a hypothalamus, you'll be happy to know that you don't even have to insert your keys into the slot to get the engine ticking over. So long as they're on you, the V60 will happily accept the push of your chubby forefinger and upon me doing so, our tester's T4 petrol engine surged into life.

Let's get technical. The T4 is the second-lowest of the engine range, the 150 horsepower T3 bringing up the rear. With 4 cylinders and a displacement of 1595cc, you'll be happy to know that Volvo have managed to crank out 180 horsepower coming in at 5700rpm with torque figures of 240Nm from 1600rpm. For all you part-time gearheads, the translation behind these figures is quite simple. Whilst the D3 diesel we test drove in January '11 was 160Nm more torquey and thus provides lower-end grunt in acceleration, the extra horsepower is noticeable higher up the rev range where the unit is able to continuously add more speed without the need to change gear. In fact, I found the V60 T4 was able to pull from 6th gear from 30mph all the way up to 80mph plus. If you're not a fan of quick shifts and don't want to splash out the extra moolah on the Powershift Transmission, get the T4 or T5.

Official 0-60mph times state a brisk sprint of 8 seconds dead and a top speed of 137mph. We of course didn't venture up to those higher speed realms, but regardless, motorway driving was drama-free and just easy. You won't run out of overtaking juice and Volvo's high levels of build quality mean that tyre and wind roar are kept to an absolute minimum. If you want a more hair-raising experience, then the T6 All Wheel Drive model that has recently been tuned by Polestar, will give you at least 304 horsepower depending on your tuning setup but returns a poor 28.5mpg.

On the road, the V60 is setup to primarily provide a comfortable ride. Imperfections in the tarmac won't be noticed inside the cabin as the softened suspension settings help to soak up bumps and niggles. That's not to say that handling is compromised, just that the drive doesn't feel taught enough to take on sharp corners. Feedback through the steering wheel is actually rather good and if I had to make a criticism, it would be that the steering is on the light side, which is fantastic at low speeds but doesn't invoke the same confidence at higher velocities.

But here is where being dynamic comes back into the equation. What's the point of power, sportiness and a back-bone shattering ride? In my eyes, a proper estate has to prioritise.

First off, can it ferry around lots of people and lots of "things"? The V60 can answer with a resounding yes to that. OK so boot space isn't monstrous but there's no boot lip which means sliding things in and out is friction-free. Ahem.

Secondly, can the wagon get those people to their destinations quickly and efficiently? Barring the T3 and D3 engines, the V60 again passes this test with flying colours. No, it doesn't need to be able to drift and no it doesn't need to do a 10 second quarter mile, but it does need to have sufficient grunt. Whilst the official petrol-consumption figures for the T4 put it at 42.2mpg combined, in reality we only achieved a maximum of 37mpg on the motorway. It's still not disastrous but there is a case to have the D5 engine instead.

Thirdly, can the estate get those people to their destinations safely? If you haven't seen the video at the top of this piece, what on earth are you doing?! The answer to this question is a resounding yes. Blind Spot Information System, Pedestrian Detection System, Lane Departure Warning, Adaptive Cruise Control...phew, need I say more?!

And finally, can the vehicle get those people to their destinations safely, without embarrassing them upon arrival? For me, Volvo's 2011 V60 is easily one of the best looking sports wagons on the market today. Sitting on 17" Balder Alloy wheels, rocking a metallic paint job and appearing refined and hunkered down to the road, the V60 steals the show.

So how much for a vehicle that characterises continuous change or activity and that seems to have all the answers before you've posed the question? £27,360 On The Road and £34,320 fully specced up. That's some coin, but if it means that Mr. Family Man can carry on reliving the youth of his glory days, well, that's probably a price worth paying.

2011 Volvo V60 T4 Gallery