just been driving latest model Volvo S80

First impressions:
the rear suspension has not been bolted on to the car !! the wheels are only there coz the body weight is stopping the coming detached and the brakes are way too sensitive

Details:
The new twin turbo 5 pot diesel engine is like a petrol starts thinking about life at 2500 pulls hard between 3300 and 4500, where it make a great noise and is happy to run quite hard to 4800. Its very revy. The review (in the attached link) from autocar saying its all over at 4000 is utter rubbish!

On smooth roads and in relaxing cruise mode its very nice. It looks good is nice inside, except the instruments jump between bright backlighting and dim in relation to ambient light levels. This is very distracting and since when did anyone need automated adjustment for that?

Bad roads and it has a very weird sensation that the rear of the car is only vaguely attached to the front, hit big pot holes (very easy as all the roads are f**ked round here) and you are greeted by terrible shudder and noise through the car. Unfortunately this horrid feature is becoming the norm on all modern cars.

Overall seems to lack toys but really I was just desperate for something to let me adjust the suspension.

Pressing on:
Quite a bit of torque steer and in the wet the stability control didn't cut in even in conditions where it should have intervened severely, OK for me bloody dangerous for most!

For the facelift/next model:
put the drive to the rear wheels and fit an autobox

http://www.autocar.co.uk/CarReviews/Fir ... ux/241965/

Not very good then. Guess all the focus went on the XC60.

That is not to great either. Nice in a middle of the road kind of way, but nothing exceptional.

Quite shocked because the S60 was a stellar car.

Volvo seems to be floating into oblivion as of late.

re the suspension issue on bad roads.

Not that this is my car, but I think my ideal job would be finishing of the cars ready for production. If I had too much time and too much money I'd play about and fix it.

Looking in autocar test about what they changed. Ride height 15 or 20mm lower better dampers stiffer springs and bushes and a stiffer antiroll bar.

First thing I would do would be to try a MUCH softer rear roll bar then probably reduce spring rate a bit. I think they took all the compliance out and now a bump one side upsets the whole car instead of letting the suspension move on that wheel.

One thing I didn't say is the car feels no bigger than a C30 to drive in size terms, in weight when pressing on its just the same as any other big car, get most of 2000kg jumping about and u need to drive it rather than just be there for the ride