V60 T3/T4 2011 any good

[mcouchard]

Hi all, I'm tempted to get a Volvo again, I have a new job with 50 mile round trip commute and really would like an estate again. There are a few V60's for sale 2011/12 plate with the 1.6 T4 and one with the T3 engines that I am interested in.

I have always had petrol and would like to avoid Diesel if possible and at the price bracket I am looking it is difficult to get a Euro 6 diesel.
It will also tow a 1300KG caravan, we typically take it to Europe for 3 weeks every summer, so it needs to tow well.
Currentely I have a 2008 Renault Laguna 2.0 petrol hatch that is great but at 15 years old getting european breakdown cover is difficult and expensive. Plus I have to load the caravan carefully because even with new rear suspension it sits low, hence why I want an estate, they generally have uprated springs.

What are the engines like? I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that are they the Ford units? What level of high mileage can be expected from these, I'm assuming nothing on the Volvo's of old.

What should I look out for in terms of issues?

Half of the T4 cars are Japanese imports is there anything that could cause issues with these i.e. parts, different setups etc?

Thanks,
Matthew

[innocent2k]

I would certainly steer clear of the automatics. Not sure about the T4, but the T3 with the 1.6 uses the powershift transmission that is prone to failure after relatively low mileage. When I was looking at cars myself, I observed that a lot of the 1.6 T3s had their transmissions replaced even before 100.000km, did some googling and found that Ford had massive problems with the powershift transmissions some time after 2010.

I decided to invest some extra money in it and found a 2016 T3 with the 1.5 VEA and Aisin Warner transmission. Had a bit of a rough start, but mostly inflicted by incompetent work shops Very happy with the car now, and like you I preferred to go with something else than diesel, in my cause because of a lot of small trips. For longer trips, it's not much worse than the diesels either, I'm averaging 6.2L/100KM on it. It's also a very quick and responsive car for its size and engine considered.

[S60RDesign]

My T4 is on 88,500 miles - had the car since 35,000 and the engine hasn’t missed a beat, it doesn’t lose oil or coolant either. It isn’t the fastest thing and gives a linear power deliver, you won’t be pinned back in the seat but it’s ok. I don’t think it’ll be great towing a caravan though.

[moorgate]

I can speak to the issue of Japanese imports: Yes, they are different in a few respects. The onboard computer is of course displaying in Japanese, as is the dash. I found I could get through the Japanese menus by showing them to Google Lens which I have on my Android phone. Lens should really be called Tricorder for us old trekkies: It detected the menu text, I pressed "translate" and after a few rounds of hunt and pick I found the menu entry to change language!

That's the good news. The bad news is, the info system embedded in the clocks doesn't follow the language setting of the big info/satnav screen! So now I have English to the left and Japanese in the clocks. Also, the satnav might be lovely, but since it only covers Japan, I have no idea how good it might be. No big issue, you say: Sort of a big issue, is my response, because when I let the car see my Satnav phone (sad boy, two phones, etc) via Bluetooth, for some bizarre reason the phone drops it's data connection and my install of Waze stops giving me routing instructions. So I can have either Bluetooth audio, or navigation, but not both at the same time.

The condition of Japanese imports is by and large, far better than cars living in the UK for the same period of time. Mine is gratifyingly spotless, dentless etc, and the overall cost to bring it in leaves me with c. £2k savings comparing like-for-like with a UK car - money which I expect to have to spend fairly soon sorting out the Powershift transmission: first gear is a trifle shunty from time to time, which I understand is best fixed with some new clutch packs.