Volvo S60 R-Design review

A nice design can do you a great deal of good. With the S60, Volvo had a design winner and then they went ahead and gave it a facelift. We didn’t quite like its styling after that as it had lost its charm and youthfulness but now the S60 is back, not as unique as the pre-facelift car but with just enough to make you want to own one more than before. The Volvo S60 in this R-Design trim is more than just a styling job though. It’s got a new engine and gearbox to give it that little bit more performance this car in the racy red colour deserves. Let’s find out if it works as well or better in the S60 as it does in this XC60 SUV (Volvo XC60 review here) 

Design

The S60 is fairly compact and neatly tucked in to look almost sporty enough to distance itself from the executive luxury sedan segment. The stubby boot, muscular bulge on the bonnet and those gorgeous set of alloys sure turn heads as much as the red paint job on the car. The R-Design S60 gets a new grille, matte overall with gloss black stripes and the R-Design logo housed in. ORVMs are painted in Silver and the twin exhausts gets a chrome tip between a chunky diffuser to add to the S60’s sporty quotient. Surely, the S60 is the most youthful car in its segment.

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Interior

Not much has changed on the inside from the car we drove last year. It still sports the same layout, and the equipment and materials are carried forward too. This car though gets the R-Design seats and the R-Design badge splattered all over the cabin to remind you of the special variant. The seats are supremely comfortable and keep you in place at all times. Fantastic bolstering and the right amount of cushioning make the front seats a place you will want to spend a lot of time in. The rear seats aren’t bad either. You might give the best seat in the house to the chauffer but the comfortable and well contoured rear seat will still keep you in your happy place. The S60 isn’t a very roomy sedan for its class though. If you want a more spacious cabin, the S60 isn’t the car for you.

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Features and equipment

Leather wrapped steering wheel and gear shifter aside, the S60 R-Design gets a sunroof, sports seats, and front and rear parking assists. You get a navigation system, remote control for the rear seat passengers and a 7-inch screen that changes colour according to the driving themes (Eco, Elegance and Performance). Compared to the base variant that gets higher 50 profile 17 inch wheels, this car gets 235/40 R18s. 

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Engine and performance

Sometimes some car models are fortunate enough to be in that time of a lifecycle when they get a new engine to replace the current one. The successor almost always is better and moreover, it’s rare, as engines outlive the cars themselves so you will more often get to see fresher models with the engines carried forward. The S60 gets the new Drive-E engine that is quickly finding its place into every Volvo. If you haven’t read our XC60 R-Design review yet, we are already impressed by its power delivery and engine note. The new eight speed automatic is quicker as well. Still indecisive around the redline but a smooth shifter if you don’t max it through the gears. 

Volvo’s welcome obsession with safety weighs the car down to a kerb weight of about 1.7 tonnes yet it has got a o-100kmph sprint time of 7.4 seconds, which is on par with the much lighter new Mercedes-Benz C-Class and according to official figures is a good 1.8 seconds faster to the 100kmph mark compare to its predecessor.  The 181PS of power is a good 18PS rise over the older unit although the torque rating at 400Nm stays the same. That high dose of torque gives a noticeable torque steer when you step on the gas. It’s not as pronounced as on the XC60 but you sure feel it. The R-Design gets a stiffer chassis and roll bars to the standard car so the effect of that torque on the front wheels we presume must be more in the non R-Design S60. 

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Ride, handling and ease of driving

Large 18 inch wheels, 40 profile tyres and stiff suspension ensure stiffer than usually acceptable ride for our conditions. The competition is so far ahead in getting the right balance for our roads that the S60 feels annoying as slow city speeds. It begs you for that open road, some twisties thrown in and the speeds to tilt the ride balance in its favour. And yes it does tilt, out on the highway where the S60 can max out without a sweat. It corners well too for a torquey front wheel drive car. 

Don’t expect sportscar like handling and feedback through the steering wheel because you won’t get that. The S60 however is predictable, doesn’t roll much and exits corners with a finesse we didn’t expect out of it. It’s also an easy car to drive with a good view out of the driver’s seat and compact dimensions.   

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Price and fuel efficiency

At Rs 40.25 lakh, ex-showroom Delhi, the S60 R-Design is priced on par with its German rivals, despite being a CBU. The new engine returns about 13kmpl on an easy run which is quite impressive. When you begin to eke out more performance from the engine, you get in the ballpark of 10-11kmpl. The company rates it at 26.3kmpl in the combined EU cycle.

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Verdict

The Volvo S60 till now was a fringe player in the luxury sedan segment. The specifications didn’t hold up against its rivals and the space and luxury was not right up there. But a new engine and gearbox has changed that and the comfier cabin gives the S60 that added bit of luxury now. It handles well and performs on par in the segment. Only if Volvo could sort out the low speed ride, the S60 would make for a better rounded package. The S60 R-Design on the whole however is still a far better car to drive and own than before.

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