Freedom Road Tests of Volvo V70 & XC70

The volvo UK website had a page advertising the Freedom test drive. I had previously visited a dealership and they were unable to provide a test drive - in fact they could only show me an XC70 that was in storage as Volvo was holding the cars until the launch.

The Freedom drive was near Warwick at the end of September.

I booked 2 cars, a V70 T6 and an XC70 D5. It was the XC70 D5 that I was interested in - but I wanted to make the comparison for both the engine and the chassis.

Both the cars I drove were automatic models (unfortunately) and were heavily equipped.

The Volvo V70 T6 was the first car to test - on mixed roads for about 30 minutes.

The car was obviously quick, considering the power - but didn't feel sportscar speed or nimble. Maybe because the sound and ride was damped. However the steering feel was very strange. Around the dead ahead position, there was no feel, and you felt yourself constantly making small adjustments to the wheel position - there was no weight. It felt there was something wrong with the caster setting on the front wheels or the power steering was not sorted. It was bad enough for me to not consider the car.

The active damping system didn't seem to have a significant difference between settings. Maybe because of the speed or the roads - but the sport setting didn't seem particularly sporting..nor the comfort very soft either.

Then I drove the Volvo D5 XC70. This was a lux model but had many of the sport options, including the larger 18inch wheels - and the adaptative speed control steering.

The car was obviously slower than the V70 T6 - but the XC70 D5 seemed to have plenty of torque to give good acceleration - despite the mushmatic gearbox.

What was a major improvement was the steering feel at speed. I can only think the adaptive speed control power steering helps with the feel. This made such a difference. All of the other interior and options seemed to be replicas of the the V70.

So on this basis of around 1hr of driving Volvo's around Warwickshire - I chose the Volvo XC70 D5 as the the clear winner.

Where to Start

The starting point for choosing an XC70 was the internet.

I had a good look around the Volvo UK website.

http://www.volvocars.co.uk/

The site is quite well constructed, and allows you to build the car models of your choice, relatively easily and without crashing or blocking. So I constructed my XC70 based on a wish list and combining what I felt worked well or was missing from my last Audi A4.

The one thing it does do, is show you how incredibly expensive the toys and options are on the new Volvo XC70. Not sure if that is just a Volvo thing, or an XC70 thing.

We will come to this later in the blog

Searching For A New Car

I had previously leased a black metallic, Audi A4 Avant 2.0Tdi.

Since this car was linked to my job, when I changed my job, I had to hand the keys back. The car had covered 25,000km in 6 months. Overall, very happy with the car, only one issue was the oil consumption.

With my new job, I was able to get a new lease car. However, Audi wasn't part of the scheme, and I found it difficult to lease privately.

I therefore decided to look at Volvo cars. Volvo had recently announced the launch of the V70 and XC70.

I was able to test drive both models on a Volvo Freedom testdrive, and liked the Volvo XC70.

Volvo also had a quick delivery time, so in around 6-8weeks from order, I could be driving a new XC70.