I won’t buy a car without a manual transmission. But, with three kids, at some point I’m going to need a third row of seats. What to do? Currently there are only two alternatives, both of which are rarely equipped with manual transmissions on dealer’s lots: the Volvo V70 and Audi A6 allroad wagons. The Volvo is available with three five-cylinder engines making 168, 247, and 300 horsepower, respectively. The last two are turbocharged, and the last (denoted by the “R” performance moniker) comes with all-wheel-drive. If you want a manual, the Audi is available only one way: in all-wheel-drive “allroad” form with a 250-horsepower, 2.7-liter turbo V6.

I’ve driven two V70s before, but none with a manual. I wasn’t impressed. The steering was too numb, the brakes too touchy. To sample the manual—not one that shifts well—I’ve had to drive S60s. For example, last fall I test drove and reviewed an S60 R. The dealer said they had no plans to stock the V70 R—those would only be ordered for specific customers.

Well, when I visited this dealer again recently they had not one but two V70 Rs on the lot. One was extra special. Its combination of the special-order-only teal exterior with the extra-cost ($1,550!) orange “Atacama” leather interior is not for everyone. Not even, it turns out, for the customer who ordered it, who ended up declining delivery. I guess it looked better in his imagination. They’re going to have to sell that one cheap. I ended up driving the other one, a more sedate dark gray with beige interior. Neither wagon was fitted with the manual, so I drove an S60 R again to refresh my memory on that aspect of the car.

Volvo V70 Reliability

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Styling

Through the late 1990s Volvo’s were widely regarded as some of the least stylish cars on the road. The wagons especially were not only boxy, they were boxes. Although beginning in the early 1980s some concessions were made to aerodynamics, none were made for aesthetics. Nary a curve was to be found. Somehow this boxiness did not hurt Volvo’s sales. Many loyal customers even found its cars’ simple lines appealing for their connotation of simplicity and strength. Their distinctiveness was also a draw—those Volvos could be mistaken for nothing else.

Volvo began to cast aside its proud frumpiness with the 1998 C70 coupe. However, this new, curvy body was a coupe, and thus of limited market significance. After all, a few times in past decades Volvo had sold a stylish coupe. Real change began with the 1999 S80 sedan, the top of the Volvo line. The S80 contained more stylish curves than any previous Volvo sedan. Lest all continuity be lost, these curves were highlighted by strong creases and sharp edges. Thanks to these, and a strong shoulder running the length of the car a few inches below the beltline, the new S80 retained a visual solidity that clearly said “Volvo.”

These days every car company seeks to cut costs by sharing basic engineering elements across models. In Volvo’s case, a pair of smaller vehicles were derived from the S80: the 2001 S60 sedan and V70 wagon. The S60 is nearly ten inches less lengthy than the S80. The V70 wagon, meant to serve as a companion to both sedans, falls between them in wheelbase and length.

While the S60 and S80 have sweeping rooflines with stylishly raked rear windows, the V70 retains the upright rear window of its predecessors to maximize cargo capacity. Nevertheless, it is much more stylish than previous Volvo wagons.

The R is noticeably differentiated from other V70s only through uniquely styled five-spoke wheels. The wheels are tasteful, but unlikely to draw attention to the car apart from their size (18s are optional on the sedan). The R also has a unique front fascia and a tiny spoiler on the trunk, but these will only be evident to people looking for them. The R is clearly not meant for those who want to be noticed.

Volvos’ interiors have also become more stylish, but not to the same degree as their exteriors. Rectinlinear lines continue to dominate, softened through rounded faceplate corners and soft-touch materials and controls. The overall look recalls Scandanavian furniture in its connotation of restrained luxury. Material quality is roughly equivalent to VW’s, which is to say it falls between that of good mainstream brands (Honda, Toyota) and the better luxury brands (Audi, Lexus).

Two details catch my eye in these new interiors. Air vent selection is controlled through three large adjoining buttons on which a seated person is outlined. Very intuitive. To direct air to your feet, push the button on which the feet are drawn, and so on. Overall the minor controls are designed and arranged more logically than in other European luxury sedans. “Good design” in the European sense goes beyond styling to include usability. This is good design in the European sense. The second detail is present in manual-transmission cars: the shifter is wrapped not in a boot but in a curved piece of hard silver plastic which slides around beneath a similarly finished rounded bezel. It looks somewhat like a computer joystick. I suppose the intent might have been to connote high-tech. It is distinctive, but I’m not sure it fits the rest of the interior.

To these details, the R versions of the S60 and V70 add a couple of their own. The gauge faces are iridescent blue with silver numerals and silver beveled surrounds, a style and color scheme adopted from upscale sports watches. Nifty looking, but like the shifter they don’t quite meld with the rest of the interior. Maybe they’d look at home in the blue leather interior; the cars I’ve driven have been upholstered in orange and beige.

Accommodations

In the front seats there is plenty of room in all directions. Owing to its S80-like width, the V70 feels like a midsize car to the driver and front passenger. Volvo has long been known for large, comfortable seats, and the R seats despite their aggressive-looking bolsters adhere to this tradition. People of all sizes should be pleased with the comfort of these seats. Aside from their size, they are less firm than those typically found in German cars, yet still provide support in all the right places. For driving long distances, I can think of few better.

The front seatback bolsters are spaced a bit too widely and splay out too much to firmly grasp a borderline slender man like myself. In aggressive driving, these bolsters prevented me from sliding (unlike the comfortable but flat and slick seats in the base V70), but I would have liked to feel a bit more secure. People of larger build, though, should be quite happy. The seat cushion bolsters were more to my taste.

Strangely for an upscale sport sedan, the R’s seats include only basic adjustments (height, tilt, recline, lumbar)—and the lumbar adjustment is even manual. To reconcile Volvo’s traditional comfort for with the R’s sporty mission, bolster adjustments would be very welcome. The steering wheel manually tilts and telescopes.

The driving position provides good but not great visibility. The view forward is much like that in the German competition. The top of the dash is high enough to suggest luxury but not so high as to impede visibility or provide that “in a bathtub” feeling I personally dislike. The view to the rear is hampered somewhat by large headrests, but is generally more open than in the swoopier sedan despite the larger number of pillars.

The wagon has nearly two inches more rear legroom than the S60 sedan, and an inch more rear headroom. Both are very welcome, as the S60’s rear seat is marginal for a compact, much less a midsize car. However, the rear seat cushion is less comfortable in the wagon, perhaps because of the optional integrated booster seats fitted to the car I drove. The center position is neither roomy nor comfortable. Most midsize wagons have superior rear seats.

The optional third-row seat is suitable only for children and clowns.

The V70 is a better match for midsize German wagons in cargo volume. It offers over 70 cubic feet of volume, and this volume is usefully square. Credit the upright rear styling.

On the Road

The R accomplishes its significant 53-horsepower jump over the formerly top-of-the-line T5’s engine through eight-percent more displacement, additional boost, and variable timing of the intake as well as the exhaust valves. (Only the exhaust valves are variably timed on the T5 engine.)

Compared to competitors’ normally-aspirated engines, Volvo’s turbos produce peak power at relatively low RPM. With the manual, the R’s peak occurs at 5500 RPM, low for such a highly tuned engine. Clearly, if Volvo so desired, there is yet more power to be found in this engine by tuning it to peak at over 6000 RPM. Typical of both Volvo and Saab, however, the emphasis even in the R is on a wide, flat torque curve. The manual-transmission engine’s electronics adjust turbo boost to produce the peak torque of 295 foot-pounds all the way from 1950 RPM to 5250 RPM.

Note that I said “with the manual.” With the automatic, peak power remains the same, but peak torque is only 258 foot-pounds, in this case from 1850 to 6000. Most likely the engine has been detuned to safeguard the transmission, but the automatic in the S80 T6 somehow manages 280 foot-pounds. Is this a different transmission, or are they assuming a more aggressive driver? Consequently, the power peak with the automatic is at 6000 RPM.

Actually, Volvo’s claim of 300 horsepower seems dubious with the automatic's engine. I suspect they’re using the German DIN formula, which yields a slightly higher figure than the American SAE formula. Using the SAE formula with Volvo’s torque figure for the automatic's engine, I get a figure of 295. Still powerful, but not a nice, round 300.

Whatever the real numbers, the S60 R with the manual feels much more powerful than the V70 R with an automatic. Part of this is no doubt because the wagon is heavier and automatics tend to be slower, but the wagon felt especially less punchy in the midrange. The automatic’s lesser torque output can readily be felt. The manual is not strong off the line, but the automatic is even softer. At moderate speeds turbo lag (the delay while the turbo spins up and pressurizes the intake manifold) keeps the engine from feeling responsive. Only at highway speeds does the R engine begin to fulfill the promise of its specs, with quick responses and strong acceleration.

Ultimately, and especially in automatic form, Volvo’s R is not competitive with BMW’s M in engine performance. I strongly suspect that a V6-powered Camry, Altima, or Accord can dust a V70 R automatic with traction control enabled. (Car magazine times and Volvo’s claim of 5.4 seconds to 60 for the manual sedan likely involve popping the clutch at high RPM with the traction control off, taking full advantage of the Volvo’s all-wheel-drive. Even with suck tricks, Volvo only claims a 7.2 time for the automatic sedan.)

Aside from boost lag, the R’s engine shares a second shortcoming with the other S60 engines. With five cylinders, it will never sound nearly as sweet as a good six, or even a mediocre six. Thankfully, the R engine manages to sound more refined than the base engine—though I do not imagine anyone will find its song (gargling?) beautiful. In this area the automatic does have an advantage: its powertrain feels smoother and more refined, likely because the transmission’s hydraulic torque converter absorbs engine vibration.

As with other turbos a clear tradeoff is involved between transmission types. In aggressive driving a manual tends to be better, as finding the right gear and holding it is more intuitive even compared to manually shifting the automatic. For quirk squirts through traffic, or for passing on the highway, the automatic tends to be better, as you simply have to depress the accelerator and the transmission will kick down, the turbo will spool up, and you’ll be off. Somehow boost lag seems less a factor with an automatic in such situations. Basically the same tradeoff as must normally be made between transmission types, but magnified by the basic nature of a turbocharged engine.

The five-speed manual I once sampled in the base S60 was a bit long of throw and coarse of feel. The six-speed developed for the R is better on both counts, but still disappointing for this sort of car. This time around the S60 R’s shifter felt downright sloppy to me. On top of this, the clutch engages near the top of a very long travel. This made it difficult to adjust the driver’s seat to be far enough from the clutch but close enough to other controls. For what it’s worth, my experience with Audi manuals suggests that it does little if any better in shifter and clutch design.

The manual R’s gearing is on the tall side for an engine of this size. In sixth the engine turns a lazy 2200 RPM at 60. This should be good for fuel economy, such that the EPA highway number should be easily attainable. It does mean that passing requires a downshift to fifth or even fourth, but I personally feel that highway fuel economy is more important than top-gear acceleration. A shorter first gear for more grunt off the line might be nice, though. My suggestion: shorten the final drive or space the six ratios a bit more widely.

Powerful Volvos in recent years have suffered from a moderate amount of torque steer—the steer wheel tightens up and even tugs to one side a bit under hard acceleration. This is common in powerful front-wheel-drive cars. Although some others suffer from far more torque steer, I’d prefer none at all. Here the R’s all-wheel-drive system comes into play. Although nearly all power is directed to the front wheels when cruising, by the time the turbo kicks in enough power has been automatically routed to the rear wheels that no torque steer is evident.

The brakes, with powerful calipers supplied by Brembo, are also an improvement over other Volvos. Volvo brakes tend to be powerful, but I found them non-linear and grabby on a V70 I drove a couple of years ago. I detected no such problems with the R’s brakes. They engaged in a more linear fashion, yet were plenty powerful when called upon.

Last time I wished I’d had more time and better roads to push the R harder. I wasn’t sure I’d fully evaluated its ride and handling. This time around I had both cars all to myself for as long as I wanted them, and there was less traffic on the roads. My evaluation remains the same, though.

When developing the R, Volvo focused on handling. The all-wheel-drive system works in conjunction with individually adjustable shocks and a sophisticated stability control system to optimally balance the chassis by varying the amount of power sent to the rear wheels and shock damping. Supposedly this electro-mechanical system produces a bit of oversteer heading into curve, a balanced chassis through the apex, and a bit of understeer on the way out of the curve. (Sensors read steering angle and the rate of acceleration. No yaw sensor is mentioned in the brochure, but I would expect one also plays a role.) Adjustments are supposedly made 500 times a second, which would be much quicker than similar systems in the past (though GM’s latest adjustable shocks as fitted to some Corvettes and Cadillacs are twice as fast). As a result, while similar past systems always seemed a step or two behind, the Volvo’s is largely transparent. The range through which the shocks are adjusted can be controlled through three conveniently placed buttons on the dash, “comfort,” “sport,” and “advanced.”

During all of my test drives I spent most of my time in “sport” but played around with the other settings. Other reviewers have described the ride quality in “advanced” as harsh. In contrast, I could detect only a small difference in ride quality across the three settings, even going up and down the same poorly paved road a number of times. Cornering felt flatter in the firmer settings, but I’m not sure I could tell the difference “blind.” In a S80 fitted with the adjustable shocks (but with only two settings (I felt an even smaller difference. There are two possible explanations: the settings do not differ that much, or—more likely—even in the “comfort” setting the suspension does a good job of firming up quickly when this is called for.

When making turns and accelerating up on-ramps my general sense was of a very stable, well-damped chassis. In turns the R leans little, unlike a base S60 or V70. It takes a set and sticks, albeit with a touch of understeer when accelerating through a turn. If you somehow do mess up very badly Volvo has fitted the R with a bevy of electronics to save you. I never detected the operation of the stability control. Either it intervenes seamlessly or I didn’t push the car hard enough to engage it. Should control be hopelessly lost despite the all-wheel-drive, stability control, and so forth, or a collision occur, the R includes the vast array of safety features found on nearly all current luxury cars. Volvo with reason is pitching this as a safe high-performance car. After all, it would be folly to simply abandon its traditional safety image. A great car for tackling any road quickly yet safely.

The R’s steering is less of an improvement over the standard car’s. The steering ratio is a smidgen (5.6%) quicker than even the T5’s, to increase its responsiveness. And the chassis does respond quickly and predictably to steering inputs. However, the steering did not feel nearly as sharp or communicative as Volvo's literature claims. As in other Volvo’s I’ve driven over the past two decades, a firm-yet-numb feel that connotes safety and solidity, even stolidity, predominated. This did not detract substantially from my ability to place the car but it did detract from my driving enjoyment. The V70, likely owing to its longer wheelbase, felt even more stable—and even less sharp. Luckily, unlike the S60 its competition is generally midsize, and so its lack of a compact’s agility is less of an issue. An Audi A6 feels even larger and less agile.

Even with the V70’s suspension set to “advanced” its ride felt smooth and even a bit on the cushy side, if not quite as fluid as a BMW or Lexus. (BMW has somehow managed to endow its sedan chassis with both a compliant ride and good communication skills.) Likely owing to its longer wheelbase, the V70 wagon rode more smoothly than the S60 sedan, with noticeably less fore-aft pitching.

Noise levels were moderate on the highway. Performance tires tend to become noisy on some surfaces, but I did not traverse any that made the R’s Pirellis sing. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if the R were less refined and quiet. As it is, the level of refinement detracts from the perceived level of performance—as is the case with many powerful luxury cars, the R does not feel as quick as it is.

Overall, I found the wagon smoother than the sedan and nearly as fun to drive once the transmission difference is accounted for. The problem is, neither is as fun to drive as a high-performance car should be. The steering is not sharp enough and the manual shifter is not precise enough. The moves just aren’t there. With the automatic the R also lacks the acceleration to fulfill its mission. Volvo needs to beg, borrow, or steal a stronger slushbox. As it is, an automatic V70 R buyer better not challenge Accord drivers at stoplights.

Pricing

For quick, up-to-date pricing, and especially user-specified price comparisons, check out the website I created: www.truedelta.com. Why yet another vehicle pricing website? Well, I personally lacked the patience to keep using the others. They were too slow and required too much effort, especially when trying to compare prices. So I taught myself some programming and created a site where there is no need to dig through option packages, prerequisites, and the like one by one -- the TrueDelta algorithm figures these out for you in one swift pass.

The V70 R’s big, undeniable advantage is that it has no obvious competitors. If you want a performance-oriented vehicle with a manual-transmission and three rows of seats, this is about your only choice. The base price of $39,435 (about $2,000 more than the sedan) is not cheap, but is a bit lower than even a base Audi or BMW midsize wagon.

Adding the $1,995 Premium Package (sunroof and uplevel stereo), $350 heated seats, $1,150 third row, and $450 metallic paint brings the list to $42,230. Add amother $1,250 for the automatic. Edmunds suggests that the $42,230 car typically sells for about $41,500 after the typical dealer discount, but my sense is that a considerably larger discount should be possible.

The closest competitor is the Audi allroad wagon. I haven’t driven this car, but have driven the 2.7T A6 sedan. Its acceleration was strong, with less boost lag than in the Volvo, but its handling was clumsier, and the heavier, taller allroad is supposed to be clumsier still. After all, the allroad is supposed to be an SUV substitute, not a performance vehicle. Equipped like the Volvo, it lists for $46,090 even before adding the third-row seat and metallic paint (I could not find pricing information on this feature). Edmunds suggests a price of about $44,800 after discounting. So about $4,500 more than the Volvo. Between the two the Volvo seems to be the better value, but the Audi has some advantages. For those more into room and luxury than performance (but then what would you be buying a wagon for?), or who need the Audi’s adjustable ground clearance, the Audi might be the better bet. Otherwise, I guess it’s the Volvo. The quality reputation of neither brand has been stellar lately, but Volvo seems the more reliable of the two and to be getting its act together more readily.

Final words

I’d personally like a more involving driving experience from the V70 R. The “R” does not seem entirely warranted, especially not with the automatic transmission. Those interested in traveling quickly and safely over just about any paved road in luxury, however, will find it an unbeatable value. There are no direct alternatives, and the only close alternative is $4,000 more. I don’t dream of owning the Volvo, but if push came to shove and I really needed a third row of seats, this is the one I’d look for.

To learn more about my reliability research and sign up to participate in it, visit www.truedelta.com.

My reviews of related vehicles:
Audi A6
Volvo S60 R
Volvo V70 (2001)




Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 44,475
Model and Options: Premium Package, boosters, auto, metallic paint, heated seats