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What’s it like?
Volvo had a long history of building estate cars by the time the first-generation V60 arrived in 2010, so it had been honing its craft in readiness for this compact wagon. A sibling vehicle to the S60 saloon, the V60 was a direct rival to the likes of the Audi A4 Avant, BMW 3 Series Touring and Mercedes C-Class Estate, powered by an array of turbocharged petrol and diesel engines, with even a plug-in hybrid derivative towards the end of its life. The V60 is by no means the most capacious estate car in the world, and it’s certainly not Volvo’s most practical wagon in history, but if you want a practical, comfortable and likeable second-hand family carrier, the Swedish machine ought to be high on your list of considered choices.
Which model to go for?
The V60 was around during Volvo’s shift to the ‘DRIVe’ ecological philosophy, which meant the company would never make an internal combustion engine with anything more than 2.0 litres of swept capacity and four cylinders. This came into effect around 2015, so later Volvo V60s will pretty much all use 2.0-litre, four-cylinder diesel or petrol engines, although earlier in the car’s life you could also get a 1.6-litre turbodiesel, and 2.4-litre diesel and 2.5-litre petrol five-cylinders as well.
Simply put, irrespective of their engine size or cylinder count then most V60s fall into one of two badging categories – D or T. The former is for the diesels, while the latter is for petrol cars, and then these are followed by a number which relates to the power output. So, the diesels run D2, D3, D4 and D5, while the petrol models kicked off at T3 and went all the way to T6. The exceptions to these rules were a couple of rarer models, the diesel-electric plug-in hybrid called the D6 and then the high-performance petrol model called the Polestar. This latter model originally had a 3.0-litre inline-six petrol engine with 350hp, although it was later replaced by a turbocharged four-cylinder unit producing up to 367hp.
Most original V60s are front-wheel drive, although there are a handful of models which came with four-wheel drive, and which are badged ‘AWD’ on the back. Transmissions were either Volvo’s own six-speed manual, or Aisin-sourced automatics which had six speeds on earlier models and later became eight-speed units. In all seriousness, while it would be nice to have a five-cylinder turbodiesel, either the D3 or D4 provide the right blend of power to parsimony that you’d want from a prestige estate like this.
There was a higher-riding, plastic-clad spin-off of this estate called the V60 Cross Country, which used diesel engines (in the main) and all-wheel drive, but it is a rare sight in Ireland and not common on the used market. However, aside from its raised stance and styling tweaks, you need to give the same general considerations to buying this CC as you would to any other V60.
Finally, one straightforward way to spot a facelifted V60 is to look at the headlights. Prior to the update in 2013, the Volvo estate had small, separate lamp units between its main headlights and the radiator grille, whereas the later cars all had one-piece clusters that were much better to look at than the preceding arrangement.
Does anything go wrong?
In general, this generation of Volvo V60 wasn’t known for major issues, although the diesels could develop faults with their diesel particulate filters (DPF), while there were also reports of issues with the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) valves in some D4 models that could put the engine check light on and switch the car into limp-home mode. Other than that, it’s a general wear-and-tear sense check you need to run over the whole V60, as many on the used market will have covered higher mileages and could have had hard lives. Check on automatic models that the gearbox oil was replaced every three years, as there should be a record of this in the paperwork and it will give you peace of mind that the car you’re viewing has been properly looked after.
Volvo is a safety-conscious manufacturer, which might explain why it issued 11 recalls for this generation of V60. These were for: air bubbles in the coolant system; seatbelt-retaining steel cables; excessive build-up of carbon deposits in the engine intake; the EGR cooling system; cracks in a fuel hose; software problems in the emergency call module; the front-passenger seatbelt buckle; a faulty gas generator in the driver’s airbag; Engine Control Module (ECM) resets; inadvertent handbrake release; and the wiper arm fouling the brake booster line.