• Excellent fuel economy
• Plug-in and mild-hybrids are available
• You can subscribe with a one-off monthly payment

What are the running costs?

When it comes to fuelling, the Volvo V60 puts in a good account for itself. The B3 and B4 mild hybrids are economical easily returning 40mpg on a run against a claimed WLTP economy figure of between 44.8-45.6mpg. In town that suffers, but you’ll struggle to get less than 30mpg. For those looking for the ultimate fuel economy, that still lags behind behind the now-departed diesel model.

However, with the zero-emission-capable T6 plug-in hybrid also available, there is the possibility of getting much better economy and lower emissions. Let’s ignore the claimed 353mpg for the T6, and instead concentrate on the EV-only range of 54 miles, delivered by a 18.7 kWh (14.8 kWh usable) power pack.

Company car drivers will prefer this version as it offers significant savings in benefit-in-kind tax due to its low CO2 ouput. In reality, the benefits of running a PHEV are from keeping the battery pack charged up and not doing long journeys where the battery runs flat – because once duscharged, this is a 35mpg car.

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Servicing and warranty

You’ll find Volvo’s servicing and maintenance costs up there with its premium rivals – in other words, fairly expensive, with high levels of customer satisfaction from the excellent Volvo dealer network, and made good by the car’s impressive fuel consumption.

Volvo’s standard warranty, at three years or 60,000 miles matches Audi’s, but lags behind BMW’s, which is three years and unlimited mileage. The battery pack is covered for eight years and 100,000 miles, while can extend the warranty to four years/80,000 miles. Kia, Hyundai, MG and Toyota are not going to lose any sleep over this.

Reliability

• Better than German rivals, but some issues
• Shares engines and technology with other Volvos
• Volvo’s airbag issues haven’t affected V60

Volvo is known for producing long-lasting, hardy vehicles and the V60 shares its underpinnings and engines with a number of other models – so any basic issues should have been ironed out by now.

The V60’s ‘Scalable Product Architecture’ platform has been seen across the XC90, S90 and V90, so though quite new, any initial problems should have hopefully been rectified, which should bode well for Volvo V60 reliability. So far, the only recall against the V60 is for a minor software issue on the car’s multimedia system.