What’s hot?
- Well, it’s very good to drive actually.
- The new D4 four-cylinder engine family is much lighter than previous engines – by some 50kg, equivalent to the weight of a young adolescent.
There’s an impressive list of luxury features and extras, plus Volvo’s brilliant City Safety kit - The result of the reduced engine weight means the S80 feels less nose heavy and lighter on its feet.
- The D4 engine is also very smooth and quiet, engaging seamlessly with the eight speed auto.
- It has very snappy acceleration thanks to that big fat dollop of 400Nm torque, 0-62mph being dispatched in 7.9 seconds.
- But despite the performance, CO2 emissions are an astonishingly low 113g/km. That’s a whole 6g/km lower than our SME Director’s Company Car of the Year, the BMW 520d Auto – or 1% lower than the BMW in terms of company car tax bands.
- So company car tax for a 40% tax payer is just £200 a month.
- Meanwhile fuel consumption is 65.7mpg on the combined cycle (which is better than a Golf auto) – allowing potentially over 1000 miles between fill ups.
- The standard comfort suspension on 17 inch alloy wheels is also extremely pliant over road imperfections.
- One of the S80’s key qualities in the leather clad cabin is the sense of unflustered calm it imparts to the driver – and it’s here in spades with the new, quietly functioning D4 engine.
Practical too…bags of room in here - As you would expect, the S80 SE Lux model offers a long list of luxury features: leather-faced upholstery with power adjustable driver’s seat, 8 speaker multimedia audio system with digital DAB radio, integrated satellite navigation system, 17 inch alloys, LED day running lights, active bending xenon headlights with headlight cleaning system, rear park assist and TFT crystal driver’s information display.
- And in addition there’s the brilliant standard City Safety kit, This system is active at speeds up to 31mph and automatically brakes the car if you fail to react in time when the car or van in front slows down or stops – or if you’re approaching a stationary vehicle too quickly…
- … it also includes Pedestrian and Cyclist Detection with full auto brake helping to brake the car if a cyclist swerves out in front of the car or a pedestrian unexpectedly steps off the pavement and into the road.
What’s not
- The engine gets vocal when you accelerate.
- Handling is contained and tidy but it’s not the car to deliver BMW style driver satisfaction.
- We recorded disappointing fuel figures on the car’s computer – sub 35mpg, which is lower than the less fuel efficient D5 version of the S80 we’ve been driving recently. Possibly it was due to a ‘tight’ engine with few miles on the clock, the hilly terrain of the Peak District and the freezing conditions. But a longer real –world test should be made before coming to a firm conclusion on this (which you can do with Volvo’s 48 hour test drive policy).
- Miserly to give you rear park assist as standard but not front park assist.
