Volvo V60 Cross Country (2015-2018) Review

If you want a mid-sized Volvo SUV then you can have one – it’s called an XC60. If you want a mid-sized Volvo estate car then you can have one of those, too – it’s called a V60. And, if you’re not really sure what you want, you can have a Volvo V60 Cross Country, which is a sort of mash-up of the two.

Really, it’s more V60 than anything else, but to make it into a Cross Country model Volvo has cranked up the suspension by 65mm and attached various black plastic bits, including wheel arch cladding and new bumpers. Power comes from either a D3 diesel with 150PS or a D4 diesel with 190PS, the latter of which is available with all-wheel drive. 

Most of the range is front-wheel drive, though – this is less of an off-roader and more of a ‘lifestyle’ car, to use the marketing speak. In plain English, that means it’s meant for people who do outdoor things like cycling, climbing or horse riding – activities that might require the use of a narrow road or an unpaved, rutted track.

For that sort of driving there’s no real need to have all-wheel drive, but a bit of additional body protection will help when scraping along overgrown verges, while the increased ride-height will give some extra clearance over potholes and ruts, or in poorly-maintained parking areas. For those who really do need all-wheel drive it is available but it’s roughly £3000 more and only comes with an automatic transmission and - confusingly - despite being called D4, it's actually a different five-cylinder engine.

We tested the more powerful 190PS engine with front-wheel drive and a manual transmission. It’s a decent performer – 0-62mph takes 7.8 seconds and there’s a hefty 400Nm of torque from 1750-2000rpm. For overtaking or accelerating up a slip road it’s ideal, plus it remains fairly quiet and hushed unless pushed hard, when it starts to clatter like a typical diesel.

Through corners the V60 Cross Country is stable and predictable, with fairly accurate steering and good body control, despite the raised ride height. The suspension does a good job of absorbing bumps and potholes on the whole, but can get a little jiggly and bouncy over particularly poor surfaces.

A low-speed emergency automatic braking system is fitted as standard, plus there's a range of optional safety gadgets including pedestrian and cyclist detection, adaptive cruise control and a system that will stop, start and drive the car automatically in very low-speed traffic jams – though this is only available with the automatic transmission.

There’s plenty of space in the back row and, while the 430-litre boot isn’t great compared to a Ford Mondeo Estate or even a Focus Estate, it’s still usefully large. Access is good thanks to a wide opening tailgate, plus loading and unloading is made easy thanks to a flat load lip. Folding the rear seats down increases load capacity to 1241 litres.

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Cruise control, DAB radio, Bluetooth, hill start assist, rear parking sensors and 17-inch alloys are standard while Lux models gain a TFT instrument binnacle and cornering xenon headlights, among other things.

The 190PS D4 used a 2.0-litre diesel engine and covered 0-62mph in 7.8 seconds. Again, it could be combined with an automatic or manual transmission.

Confusingly, there was also a 2.4-litre engine called the D4. This also produced 190PS, but was paired with an automatic gearbox and four-wheel drive. This would reach 62mph in 8.9 seconds.

Despite its impressive performance the D4 has an official economy figure of 67.3mpg and emits just 111g/km of CO2, so it’s cheap to tax and fuel. Opting for all-wheel drive increases emissions to 149g/km, while fuel economy drops to 49.6mpg – so unless you really need the extra traction it’s probably best avoided.

Lux trim adds 18-inch alloy wheels, TFT instrument binnacle, leather upholstery, xenon headlights. Nav variants of each gain navigation with traffic and European mapping and a larger screen.