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Post by Humph on Aug 11, 2016 21:22:25 GMT
Is that one of the menu items in that new cafe?
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Post by Hofmeister on Aug 11, 2016 21:24:10 GMT
Have I ever told you about Wisley, after dark?
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Avant
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Post by Avant on Nov 6, 2016 22:59:42 GMT
Update on the V60 after 6 months / 10,000 miles.
Uncanny, isn't it! Delivery on 6 May, 5,000 miles exactly on 5 August, as in my OP above, and this morning, 6 November, the odometer goes over 10,000. It isn't as if I do regular journeys: it's just pure coincidence.
Nothing much to report - a good thing - and the pluses and minuses are as before. Now that's it's fully loosened up, the easy cruising is even more relaxed, and it's a good place to be on a long run. For me at least, big engine / medium-sized car is the right balance. And SWMBO is very comfortable getting in and out as well as sitting in the seat, which was what led us to the Volvo in the first place.
Recommended? Yes, as long as your priorities as what the V60 excels in. If it hadn't been for the seat issue, I'd probably have gone for a fourth 2-litre Octavia estate....BUT I've been lucky enough to be able to buy new and not find out how good a Skoda, particularly a DSG-equipped Skoda, would be once the warranty runs out.
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Post by Humph on Nov 7, 2016 7:52:11 GMT
Pretty looking car too.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2016 8:30:28 GMT
My S60 showed 56789 miles on Sunday. 5 years old last service showed up nothing out of the ordinary which is usual in my experience of Volvo servicing over the last 10 years. This S60 does not feel as well made as the previous model. The seats are a bit 'thin', the interior plastics shiny and brittle compared to the previous model. Over the 3+ years of my ownership I've had various bits of interior trim off to put felt pads on the back to stop plastic on plastic and plastic on metal rattles. The front nearside (to the UK) wing has been off in the dealership to relocate loose wiring which rattled about at certain speeds.
I like saloon cars but the boot on this one is a cut back too far. The previous S60 had underfloor space for a spacesaver spare wheel, this one has a flat boot floor. A polystyrene looking insert is needed to store the spacesaver under the floor or it can be secured in a bag in the boot space. With under floor storage for the wheel the boot measures only 12" from floor to rear parcel shelf combined with huge arm hinges instead of the neat scissor type previously used boot space is seriously compromised in this car.
The handling of this car is a huge improvement over the previous model though you need to keep an eye on the rear brake pad wear, some XC60 owners are being hit for a new set of pads at the first 18,000 mile service. Apparently, unless you drive your car like you stole it and are last of the late brakers then the braking system is setup with a rear bias. My car needed new pads front and rear and a new set of rear discs at 50,000 miles. The front discs should last two sets of pads.
The manual gearchange on my car is developing an arthritic joint in the forward movement for 1, 3 and 5 gears. I've had the trim off and tried penetrating oil in the cable to lever joint at the base of the gear lever but the stiffness returns with the damp weather.
The crankcase breather pipe had a loose joint causing oil vapour to decorate the engine bay, with that fixed the fuel consumption has dropped from 7.2 litres to 6.4. That may just be a coincidence with the switch to H rated winter tyres which means having to keep the speed down.
Overall, this car is not growing on me the way the previous one did. The interior space is an improvement over the previous model but at the cost of bootspace. It may be time for me to move up to the next size car but the S90 is not doing it for me. The choice of a four cylinder 2.0 litre petrol or a 2.0 litre four cylinder diesel and rear end styling that looks like it comes straight from Mladá Boleslav is making me look elsewhere which is a pity.
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Post by Humph on Nov 7, 2016 9:11:18 GMT
While I accept that some saloon cars might ( arguably ) "look" neater than their estate counterparts, I still couldn't live with their loadspace limitations. Not just for my work purposes, but for my private needs too. I constantly seem to need to shift stuff, people, and their stuff, and saloons just don't cut it for me. I have had some ( a long time ago ) because they were given to me as company cars, but I'd never buy one now, just too compromised for my purposes.
When I was buying my own cars, the Alfa 159 came out and I thought it looked fantastic so I went to test drive one. ( the estate or sport something hadn't been released yet ) I really liked the car especially with the 2.4 Diesel engine, but the boot was tiny and had very poor access so the idea got binned.
Others must travel very much lighter than me !
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sooty
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Post by sooty on Nov 7, 2016 9:41:53 GMT
The choice of a four cylinder 2.0 litre petrol or a 2.0 litre four cylinder diesel and rear end styling that looks like it comes straight from Mladá Boleslav is making me look elsewhere which is a pity. Not fancy the estate version? The saloons do have a strange back end but from what I've seen the interiors look excellent. I think that'd make up for it if you had to have a saloon.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2016 9:59:27 GMT
Not really. The last estate I tried was a V70 D5. I had an S60 D5 which was basically the same car from the front bumper to the B pillars at the time. The noise from the exhaust in the V70 was noticeable compared with the saloon. Of course it could have been that one car, generally speaking though I prefer to keep the luggage separate from the interior.
My wife drives the family car, my car is just a commuter car. Next one I buy I will look more closely at the boot space should we want to use it for the odd weekend away when I don't want to drive the family bus.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Nov 10, 2016 10:14:18 GMT
I've never quite got this 'saloon refined, estate noisy' dichotomy. I've had both - have one of each now - and simply don't notice anything attributable to the cargo end. I regularly travel in saloon versions of my estate car, on a route I know well, and the only difference I notice is that the saloon's lower roof means there's not quite enough headroom in the back.
If mine are anything to go by, you have to be working a modern car pretty hard to notice any exhaust noise at all.
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Post by Alanović on Nov 10, 2016 10:27:45 GMT
I've probably asked you before, WDB, but how on earth did you cope for so long with an S60, given the fact they have staggeringly bad rear leg room?
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Nov 10, 2016 10:58:51 GMT
Mostly by sitting in the front.
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Post by Alanović on Nov 10, 2016 11:02:33 GMT
Ah. OK. I was meaning your passengers, but I see I wrote the question poorly. You being un-short, I expect your driver's seat was nearly hard against the rear bolster.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Nov 10, 2016 11:14:58 GMT
No, not really. I'm always puzzled by people who write things like "I'm six feet tall, so I have to put the seat all the way back." In the S60 and both the cars we have now, if I put the seat right back I can't reach the pedals, even with 36-inch legs and size 13 feet, and my back doesn't make proper contact with the seat. A lot of people must slouch a lot at the wheel.
The S60 was our family bus from late 2002 - when we had one toddler and a baby on the way - to spring 2008, when it ceded those duties to a new Toyota Verso that would hold three rear passengers even if some or all were on boosters. The Volvo was fine with small children; the biggest problem was working our three-wheel twin buggy through the letterbox into the boot, but we even managed that. Yes, we'd have had a V70 if the company car budget had extended to one, but that's no bigger in the back, although it has more headroom. (I know because a German colleague has a 2005 V70, and I can sit comfortably behind him.)
Height adjusters make a big difference if the car has the headroom to use them. In the E I've found that sitting higher creates more knee room behind me, because the hollow in the back is at a better height. It's no less comfortable, but it takes away my preferred trick of saving two seat settings and alternating between them on a long drive, to give my back muscles a change. I just have to be a bit subtler if there's someone behind me.
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sooty
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Post by sooty on Nov 10, 2016 11:38:40 GMT
I've never quite got this 'saloon refined, estate noisy' dichotomy. I've had both - have one of each now - and simply don't notice anything attributable to the cargo end. I regularly travel in saloon versions of my estate car, on a route I know well, and the only difference I notice is that the saloon's lower roof means there's not quite enough headroom in the back. If mine are anything to go by, you have to be working a modern car pretty hard to notice any exhaust noise at all. I'm much of the same mind, never noticed any difference at all between saloons and estates of the same model. Mind you I'm the same with people's claims that changing tyres makes a 'huge' difference in noise levels.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2016 12:28:47 GMT
There I have to disagree. From personal experience I took off some awful Dunlops on a Honda Accord 4WS in about 1997 and replaced them (on the advice of the sainted LJK Setright no less - who actually replied to me when I wrote to him about the problem) with Avon CR338s. The difference was like putting on ear defenders. Amazing. Never noticed anything like since though.
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