This may sound boring, but we purchased a Volvo over the weekend.
My wife has been driving a Peugeot 307 CC for the past 3 years. Top spec 2.0 HDi Sport with leather and 6 gears. Great car to drive and fun with the roof down in the sun, but with only 2 doors its not practical now Tom is getting older, so we needed a 4 door car with a reasonable boot space. And after looking around we started to look at the eco engined cars because the 307 CC was only returning 41MPG and these new 1.6 e-HDI engines can get up to 74MPG. Very good for my wife as she drives over 70 miles a day to work.
We first looked at the Golf TDi 1.6 Bluemotion Tech as they are really economical, but limited boot space and a boring look put us off. She was also interested in the Peugeot 3008 because of the 1.6 e-HDI engine version and the room inside them, but again the look of the car was quite boring and nothing special.
Then whilst looking around a Car Supermarket she sat in a Volvo V70 and really liked it, and then we discovered Volvo offer the same Peugeot 1.6 e-HDi engines in their cars, so gave it a test drive, but then we discovered a much nicer model.. the V60.
Very hard to find any for sale because they seem quite rare.. I'm guessing people are holding on to them, but we eventually found one!
So this weekend we picked up a 2012 Volvo V60 R-Design DRIVe 1.6 HDI in white.
Really nice car to look at (nothing like the older square Volvo's) and really solid build quality, as you would expect. The R-Design models have lowered suspension, lower profile tires, rear defuser and twin exhausts. The interior is far better than the minimal boring interiors of older Volvo's too, with nice part leather seats, a central display screen and a nice dash with well laid out controls. It also has Start/Stop technology, plus the DRIVe model has the economic 1.6 e-HDI engine with an eco DRIVe button to improve fuel economy by reducing revs and improving MPG. Plus because of the engine and low CO2 emissions only £30 a year road tax!
The electronic hand brake takes some getting used to. I've driven VWs with them before, but those are down where a traditional hadnbrake would be and logical to use.. pulling the switch up to engage and down to dis-engage. The Volvo one is to the side of the steering wheel, similar to Audi and Peugeot. But the confusing thing is the switch works back to front to other cars so you really have to think when enabling and disabling it. A bit confusing. The keyless start is a little strange to get used to as well. You slot the key fob into a slot below the start/stop button, then press the button. You can then remove the key if you want.
We got a good deal on the car as well. We found it online at Imperial car supermarket and I went there last week to have a look and test drive it. I rang my wife to say it was worth getting so she paid a deposit over the phone to secure it, then we arrange to collect it at the weekend. Whist I was there the salesman mentioned they had a price match policy, whereby they will match a lower price anywhere else in the country within 14 days of purchase and refund the difference. I had a good look and found a couple of identical cars with less mileage on the clock for £500 less than the one we were buying.. so on Saturday we went there and presented the cheaper cars we had found... they then announced a get out clause, saying the other car had to be within 1000 miles on the clock to qualify for the price match. So we started to make them panic by saying it would be cheaper to drive and get the other car... 30 mins later and pretending we were going to cancel the deal and leave and they panicked and reduced the price to match, saving us £500 on the list price.
It also didn't help their cause that they had another identical v60 but Red in the showroom which was £750 cheaper, so a good result in the end. I will post some pictures of the car when I get chance.
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