► New Volvo XC60 extended test
► Living with D4 AWD Inscription Pro
► How is A-ff-C getting on?
So farewell, then, almost an entire Volvo XC60 D4 AWD Inscription Pro. It goes without saying that the bit missing is the retractable luggage cover, which was removed on day one to add space to the evil-smelling dog's quarters aft and has duly taken its pre-ordained place in the veritable pantheon of same occupying outside shed B at the ff-C Mudfordshire mortgage millstone.
To paraphrase the robot tailor in Woody Allen's comic masterpiece Sleeper, the XC60 ownership experience has been, by and large, 'tuhmendous'. The interior is comfortable, beautifully screwed together, extremely well equipped and – the odd over-knurled knob aside – very much to my, and perhaps more importantly, the missus' taste.
Granted, the centre console screen has succumbed to sufficient grubby dab smearings to now closely resemble those old Vaseline-lensed Mateus Rose TV adverts, and temperatures under the collar have risen somewhat with the air-conditioning's reluctance to just belt up and belt out on the hottest days.
But since the former may be readily addressed with a wet wipe and the latter may very well be down to some mysterious form of as yet unidentified pilot error, these hardly constitute shortcomings for which Egon Ronay might contemplate knocking off a star.
On the move, despite a propensity to roll a tad (in a manner which strikes me as entirely appropriate to a machine set up, first and foremost, for long-haul comfort), the XC60 ticks the grace and space boxes admirably, but does fall a whisker short on real-world pace.
Figures of 187bhp, 295lb ft and 8.4 seconds to 62mph are perfectly respectable but, truth be told, the four-cylinder diesel can become over-vocal when pressed, and an average fuel consumption relentlessly glued in the high 32s pays testament to the extent to which this has happened.
In Mudfordshire, most particularly when the rose scents the arbour, those that creak drive their crappy Rovers at precisely the speed indicated by the numerals on the stern (75, alas, excepted), and so in the interests of any progress at all, overtaking prowess is essential. The Volvo pulls just about acceptably when pushed, but the word 'nip' never really enters the equation during passing manoeuvres, and – in a rare fall from premium billing grace – the resultant noise somewhat detracts from the otherwise almost ubiquitous feelings of comfort, refinement and well-being aboard.
Then again so, to be brutally honest, does the younger hooligan's propensity to throw up and the evil-smelling dog's tendency to break wind if cornering vim generates even a whiff of g. Hence any family outing's arrival on a stretch of relatively straight dual carriageway is invariably met with a collective sigh of relief and the en-mass powering up of windows.
We'll miss the Volvo. It's a doddle to live with, a pleasure to occupy and plenty enough pleasing to drive. Indeed, the worst thing about living with a marque which now properly merits premium status is the clear and present danger that whatever follows in its footsteps will fail to do so.'
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Logbook: Volvo XC60 D4 AWD Inscription Pro
Price £45,655
As tested £49,535
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 187bhp @ 4250rpm, 295lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance 8.4sec 0-62mph, 127mph, 136g/km CO2
Miles this month 833
Total miles 7285
Our mpg 32.8
Official mpg 54.3
Fuel this month £145.37
Extra costs None
Month 9 of our Volvo XC60 long-term test: thoughts on SUV practicality
Brace yourself for the least taxing riddle ever posed. Q: When is an SUV not an SUV? A: When it’s a BMW X4.
Just try installing a pair of common-or-garden 1.85m trestle tables within one and then closing that snazzy fastback tailgate without the rear glazing going ‘BOOOOF-tinkle’. What you need to help establish the hooligans’ Toys R No Longer Us stand at a car boot sale is an XC60, into which said tables glide with all the insouciance of a sausage down a labrador’s gullet.
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Logbook: Volvo XC60 D4 AWD Inscription Pro
Price £45,655
As tested £49,535
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 187bhp @ 4250rpm, 295lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance 8.4sec 0-62mph, 127mph, 136g/km CO2
Miles this month 1401
Total miles 6452
Our mpg 32.7
Official mpg 54.3
Fuel this month £217.99
Extra costs None
Month 8 living with a Volvo XC60: air-con? What air-con?
This month, I have mostly been leaking like cream cheese in an old sock. Close to the point of all-out warfare with the XC60's air-conditioning system in the recent unpardonably hot weather, I must admit to having lost a little faith in Volvo's much vaunted human-machine interface.
If you stab the Auto button on a car's air-con controls, you want air of a temperature more usually associated with head-butting a supermarket bag of ice, in yer face, as soon as is technologically possible. This, for reasons best known to itself, the Volvo steadfastly refuses to effect...
All that happens is a flurry of noise as the system whips up great gouts of air which then singularly fail to emerge from any vent at all, let alone those pointing at one's perspiration-beaded fizzog.
I've tried adjusting the required temperature setting from a sensible
19C to something called 'Lo', but still so little happens that I have to assume this is merely an old-fashioned instruction to gaze at something riveting out of
the window.
Indeed, the only solution seems to be to dial up the required vents oneself, and likewise accelerate the fan speed. And that's just far too much hot fidgety fuss and bothersome itch in this age of supposed finger-snap automation.
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Logbook: Volvo XC60 D4 AWD inscription Pro
Price £45,655
As tested £49,535
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 187bhp @ 4250rpm, 295lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance 8.4sec 0-62mph, 127mph, 136g/km CO2
Miles this month 443
Total 5051
Our mpg 32.3
Official mpg 54.3
Fuel this month £84.68
Extra costs None
Month 7 living with a Volvo XC60: gadgets and automatics ahoy
A mild Volvo overdose elicited by time in an XC40 in the heart of M1 roadworks en route to a drive of the new V60 got me thinking...
Firstly, having finally swapped a foothold for a stronghold in the premium automotive arena, where does Volvo design go from here? And, secondly, does this newfound security of status automatically dictate that every Volvo should be an automatic?
On the basis that the company has only recently got all its ducts in a row and that there must now follow some years of gentle tweaking and fine-tuning before there’s any danger of inadvertently inhaling a Bangle-like design irritant, the second question is, perhaps, more interesting.
R8 aside, I can’t remember the last time I drove a manual Audi. The same applies to Mercedes, and even quick iterations of ‘the Ultimate Driving Machine’ spurn the lever these days. I mention these other premium types because unlike the transmission in our XC60, the XC40 I drove boasted a gearlever attached to just three cylinders, and I was also cornered into sampling a manual V60. In both cases it didn’t feel seemly changing gear. Perhaps I’m getting old. Certainly Volvo is growing up.
In less danger of ageing much further are the disgusting local sparrows and their errant ablutions. Mercifully, the evil-looking poo mentioned last month left no marks on the XC60’s metallic carapace. But, short of installing tiny Armitage Shanks loos throughout the capacious clematis in which the colony bickers, and teaching the birds to use them, I can see no end to this ongoing, um, issue. Thank God geese don’t live in trees.
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Month 6 of our Volvo XC60 long-term test review: bird poo on the paintwork
Back in the day, Wandering Hand Trouble – a mobile discotheque run by two chums – disbanded after Chum A sprayed an extremely naughty four-letter word on the roof of Chum B’s Renault 5 with an aerosol of fake snow. The snow washed off okay. The word, never.
Learning that bird poo can have the same indelible impact on car paintwork leaves me fretting for the Volvo. Our resident house sparrow population clearly went out, en masse, for a curry the other night, and I haven’t yet plucked up the courage to find out if the aftermath of the resultant pebble-dashing is permanent.
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Logbook: Volvo XC60 D4 AWD inscription Pro
Price £45,655
As tested £49,535
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 187bhp @ 4250rpm, 295lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance 8.4sec 0-62mph, 127mph, 136g/km CO2
Miles this month 381
Total 4238
Our mpg 31.8
Official mpg 54.3
Fuel this month £67.68
Extra costs None
Month 4 living with a Volvo XC60: jean blues
Just over 3000 miles in the XC60 and the leather of the driver's seat base is taking on a perceptible blue tinge. I believe I know why – I just can't believe it's really happening.
After absolutely no musing with magnifying glass and deerstalker whatsoever, I've determined the effect may be attributed to the denim legware purveyed to both the missus and me by one Mr Levi Strauss from California.
Now – having not specified the XC60 myself – I would indubitably not have opted for the brown hue of the upholstery out of choice. I am, nonetheless, somewhat tempted to remonstrate with Mr Strauss via my solicitors, Fawn, Fleece & Longlunch. Then again, given that Mr Strauss's jeans are barely even size-fast, there's bound to be a diminutive colour-fast rider written into the yardage of label sewn to the waistband. And surely we can't be the only Volvo drivers to ever wear Levis; did the upholstery team really not prepare for this eventuality?
All of which brings me to the sickening realisation that, while clotted cream seat leather can lift a Ferrari interior like no other, the same cannot be said for brown in a Volvo XC60. Best to stick to something duller and darker.
In other news, when did six minutes of air suddenly cost a quid? I swear the last time I wrestled a recalcitrant pressure hose to all four corners of a car it was a mere 10p for as many minutes, but my local garage 'n' barbecue briquette emporium seems to have switched to a pricing policy more appropriate for a dive centre in a seaside tourist trap.
I mention this because, after voyages to Cornwall and Wales – both equally wet and miserable – the Volvo has decided to warn me, in a relentlessly hectoring manner, that there is insufficient air in the tyres. Unhelpfully, though, it refuses to say which one(s), or give me a psi read-out.
Ramming air in and pressing the recalibrate icon to shut it up is one thing, trying to make sense of the extensive table of options on the door frame quite another...
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Logbook: Volvo XC60 D4 AWD inscription Pro
Price £45,655
As tested £49,535
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 187bhp @ 4250rpm, 295lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance 8.4sec 0-62mph, 127mph, 136g/km CO2
Miles this month 706
Total 3048
Our mpg 30.9
Official mpg 54.3
Fuel this month £118.51
Extra costs None
Month 3: swipe left on Sensus
Like the most inept of Camden cutpurses, I clearly need to work on my swiping technique. How come the elder hooligan can flick free of the home screen, locate the auto stop/start function and stab it to death with an outstanding irritating insouciance while, when I try, I simply garner a vast list of DAB radio stations I shall never, ever listen to? If I am to avoid inadvertently administering a screen-distracted punt up the luggage to the car in front, there is clearly work to be done.
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Price £45,655
As tested £49,535
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 187bhp @ 4250rpm, 295lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance 8.4sec 0-62mph, 127mph, 136g/km CO2
Miles this month 734
Total 2342
Our mpg 30.6
Official mpg 54.3
Fuel this month £131.16
Extra costs None
Month 2 of our Volvo XC60 long-term test review: it's the car everybody likes
When, in an earlier round of voting, m’learned colleagues of the UK Car of the Year jury took it upon themselves to award the Performance Car gong to the most muscular iteration of the Kia Stinger, I was tempted to see just how far my toys could actually be thrown from the automotive pram. Don’t get me wrong; the Stinger’s no stinker, but a better performance car than a McLaren 570S? Seriously?
Happily, said jury has now redeemed itself by agreeing with me that the XC60 is a sufficiently Jolly Good Thing to take this year’s top slot. Moreover (and wonders will never cease), the missus is – as a motoring TV presenter who shall remain nameless insists on putting it – in ‘agreeance’, summing it up with the same enthusiasm that the baddy in RoboCop demonstrated for the Cobra Assault Cannon: ‘I LIKE it’.
Indeed, such is her overall enthusiasm that, to date, the missus’ only gripe concerns the keyfob, which has been dismissed as ‘An ugly custard cream... And the buttons are far too small.’ Happily, a quick lesson in the joys of keyless entry and start (I know, I know) have gently torpedoed the latter gripe, if not the former.
The hooligans, meanwhile, have complained of not being able to fade the sound system output more strongly towards the aft accommodation. Turns out you can do this, but not using the permanently on-screen sound adjustment panel that pertains specifically to the delicious B&W stereo installation.
Rather than straightforward bass, treble, balance and fade adjustment, the B&W controls are dedicated solely to offering a range of enthrallingly diverse environments for your listening pleasure: studio, concert hall, jazz dive, Minack Theatre on Cornish cliffs, motorway underpass reeking of wee…
Turns out Volvo’s own sound adjustment platform, which does subscribe to the more traditional tweakage techniques, is buried deep within some sub-menu that requires a fair degree of swiping and prodding to unearth. Mercifully, being entirely au fait with an iPhone, the missus has pronounced the infotainment screen a veritable piece of piss to live with.
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Logbook: Volvo XC60 D4 AWD inscription Pro
Price £45,655
As tested £49,535
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 187bhp @ 4250rpm, 295lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance 8.4sec 0-62mph, 127mph, 136g/km CO2
Miles this month 741
Total 1608
Our mpg 30.2
Official mpg 54.3
Fuel this month £67.45
Extra costs None
Month 1 living with a Volvo XC60: the start of our long-term test
‘Ahhh – that’s better’ sighed the missus, waving goodbye to the Car of the Year-winning Peugeot 3008 as she settled into what, by rights, should have a fair-to-middling shout at the shortlist for the next one. Yes, we're now living with the new Volvo XC60 SUV.
This is the car which confirms that Gothenburg has finally got its eider ducklings in a row on the premium pond. By which I mean that the only reason to go out there and buy an XC90 instead is for want of a bigger car; all the good stuff which heralded the arrival of the former now putting in an appearance here.
There was no opportunity to tailor this XC60 to specific ff-C family requirements (somewhere for the missus to stow her ruddy handbag other than the front passenger footwell, rear-seat central sandbag barricade, disposable earplug dispenser, gas masks, etc) merely a choice of two cars, one sporting the R-Design specification, the other Inscription Pro.
In truth, however, even an entry-level XC60 boasts more than enough bells and whistles to keep the customer satisfied; the tailoring of the artfully wrought Sensus multimedia system to individual preferences alone capable of accounting for lengths of time spent in a stationary car more usually associated with the average dogging site.
CAR lives with a Volvo XC90: read our long-term test here
Use of the 9-inch centre console touchscreen feels fast enough for mere mortals and is largely intuitive, though the cleaning cloth provided in the glove box is clearly going to earn its keep until precisely the moment it is sufficiently grease-saturated to serve merely as a smear re-arranger. In an effort to combat this, I do promise to explore the use of voice-activated control.
Ultimately, then, it came down to a choice of undercarriage, the Inscription Pro’s adaptive air suspension and 20in alloys offering a whiff more in the schmooze department that the R-Design’s firmer set-up, despite the latter sporting 19in wheels.
Options have upped the price by less than four grand. Happily, over half of that has been splurged on a delicious, 15-speaker Bowers & Wilkins stereo, which passed Frank Zappa’s Dirty Love and wax dislodgement test with flying colours. It’s a little surprising to find smartphone integration as a £300 extra on the options list, but I suppose there may still be the occasional Outer Hebridean Volvo owner out there who might baulk at the price of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.
The 187bhp generated by 2.0 litres of turbodiesel seems, at first prods of the throttle, adequate to shift 1800 kilos of car, though the XC60 can hardly be accused of yelling off the launch pad.
Even with Dynamic mode dialled in to sharpen response to the loud pedal, the kickdown at the bottom of accelerator pedal travel appears to serve no purpose whatsoever other than to introduce a hiccup in the last inch of progress towards the Axminster. And, perhaps, account for a gently unwholesome logging of less than 30mpg at this early stage of tenure. Time will tell...
What time has already told is that the XC60 is an altogether classy act. It’s about as handsome as an SUV gets, comfortable, clever and superbly put together. It’s also pleasing the missus from the off, not least because – having become something of a car snob – she’s delighted to be back on what she considers to be premium turf. And who am I to disagree?
By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Logbook: Volvo XC60 D4 AWD Inscription Pro
Price £45,655
As tested £49,535
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 187bhp @ 4250rpm, 295lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance 6.5sec 0-62mph, 156mph, 146g/km CO2
Miles this month 322
Total 867
Our mpg 29.9mpg
Official mpg 54.3mpg
Fuel this month £67.45
Extra costs None
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