Volvo V70 T6 AWD

Volvo is finally coming to grips with the fact that the brand doesn’t stretch much beyond wagons. Reflecting this new/old reality, rumors abound that Volvo’s about to axe their range-topping S80 sedan in favor of an upmarket V100 wagon. Add in a recent Consumer Reports’ study showing that American consumers still rate Volvo number one for safety, and you begin to understand the importance of the new V70 wagon. As wagons are what keeps Volvo’s ost on their smorgasbord, “getting it right” was essential. So, did they?
In the last 10 years, Volvo has gone from Ugly Betty to Swedish beauty. Since 1998, every Volvo model has been bred from the same DNA: restrained styling, sexy hips and hood creases culminating in a grill with the classic Volvo sash. Thankfully, the new V70 has all the requisite shapes, excepting the sloping rear windscreen.
If the acceleration doesn’t blow you away, the handling certainly will. Coupled with a Haldex all-wheel-drive system, the V70 has tremendous grip through corners. Sitting on 18” wheels with 245-wide Pirelli Pzero tyres, grip levels are prodigious – making it the best way to drop the kids off to school and make it home before your favourite morning show begins.
2008 Volvo V70 T6 AWD – Dashboard Interior
2008 Volvo V70 T6 AWD – Dashboard Interior
The interior is typical Volvo – clean and sleek. The quality of materials used is extremely impressive, as is the fit and finish. The cabin is very quiet at highway speeds, indicating good cabin sealing. Front and rear leg room caters for families, with more than enough space for adults to stretch out.
The advanced key fob allows the drive to obtain information about the car’s status, meaning that you will never have to think back and try to remember if you have locked the car, as the key stores the last state.
The high-rise XC70 increases its minimal off-road cred with improved approach, departure, and break-over angles, the ability to ford foot-deep streams, and with Hill-Descent Control cribbed from sibling Land Rover. An electronically controlled Haldex wet-clutch all-wheel-drive system is standard on XCs and optional on Vs. The system sends 95 percent of torque forward until the wheels slip, at which point up to 65 percent can be routed aft. The brakes equalize torque from side to side. Volvo set up an off-road course, carefully groomed to accommodate the 8.3-inch ground clearance (up from 8.1). It looked like as rough a road as anybody making payments on a $30,000-$40,000 car would tackle, and indeed the XC70 bounded over the bumps and dips easily. The suspension never bottomed out, but it did hit the top of its travel rather harshly several times, suggesting there’s more damping in jounce than in rebound (we’re assured that travel in each direction is virtually identical). The harshest bumps elicit a clompity-clomp racket that smacks of excess unsprung weight-or perhaps is the car’s way of saying “slow down.”
What would a Volvo launch be without new safety technologies to talk about? The biggest innovation is a pair of integrated second-row child safety seats, standard on the V70, optional on the XC70. Designed to keep children in a booster seat for as long as possible, the seat cushion pops up to one position for children aged six to 10 years and to a taller one for three to six-year-olds. This also improves their view out, which may quell rear-seat whining almost as effectively as a costly rear-seat DVD system. The side-curtain airbags now extend 2.4 inches lower down the door to better protect kids. But wait, there’s more: new dual-chamber front-seat-mounted side airbags, second-generation whiplash-protection system, blind-spot detection, and available adaptive cruise control with collision-warning that primes the brake system (the brakes don’t apply like those on Mercedes PreSafe when a collision is deemed inevitable). The key fob can even detect the heartbeat of a would-be carjacker inside the car if the alarm has been tripped.
2008 Volvo V70 T6 AWD – Rear Side
2008 Volvo V70 T6 AWD – Rear Side
Basically, these cars never beg to be flogged. You won’t have to leave early to get the kids to soccer practice, but neither will you be tempted to take the long, twisty road home. While passion may not motivate Volvo sales the way it does BMWs, Volvo owners will surely learn to love their wagons deeply, and for a long time. But c’mon, Volvo, surely slipping a T6 engine discretely under the hood would add a moderate, sensible amount of passion to the mix without compromising the cars’ virtuous natures — kind of like dressing that same nice girl from the personal ad in naughty underwear.