Owners Review: Volvo C30

A serial Volvo-onwer recounts three years with a C30 – all great apart from one fundamental problem

Owner/Reviewer: Patrick Littlejohn
Model: 2009 Volvo C30 T5
Price: N/A
Where: UAE

Golf GTI or Volvo C30 T5: Golf or Volvo: German or Swedish: quick car, quicker car: DSG or Tiptronic: and so the internal argument went with the little Swedish person above my left ear and the little German above my right. I ended up with the little Swedish beauty. Why? For all the wrong, or depending on who you are, right reasons.

Let’s start with the Golf, it’s a fantastic car and you really can’t go wrong with it, handling, performance, build quality, easy to sell when you’ve had enough of it but for me what tipped it was only one reason, which will I have more fun in, feel more at home and above all which is the more interesting car?

Let’s face it as fantastic as they are Golf’s are they continue to be a little boring, German and boring, it’s so precise, it’s so practical. The Volvo without a doubt is less practical, it’s only got 4 seats instead of the Golf’s five, it’s much less sellable, it’s the kind of car you have to want to own and when we did come to sell my..er wife’s car it took a while but I did end up selling it to someone who liked Swedish cars and really liked this little Volvo.

I expect he sold it to his wife for much the same reason’s I may have sold it to mine, it’s a Volvo and you can’t get safer than that! Even if that is a bit of a white lie with today’s cars but the history counts.

There’s another reason of course why I gave up that fantastic German DSG gearbox, and it wasn’t the fact the Volvo had a 2.5litre engine over the Golf’s 2.0, well partly I admit, or the number of seats or that the Swede is less conventional and more of a looker with its high tail lights and sloped off boot which really doesn’t fit that much.

This is where the admission comes in, I may have just had a previous affinity with…Volvo’s. This c30 T5 was my third, the first a 1.7 480ES, my second a 1.7 480 Turbo, I loved that car, it’s handling wasn’t all that but for a late 80’s early 90’s car it was way ahead of its rivals in some respects. It was loaded with fancy electronics, power windows, power mirrors, sunroof, digital dash and engine management control that would occasionally stop working.

It also had a fair bit of power, the standard 1.7 with its Renault engine would beat the keved-up 2.0 litre Ford Capri and would do 209kph down a French motorway with an Audi A4 in pursuit and not surprisingly where I picked up my first speeding ticket and consequently a seven-day driving ban.

It was affectionately called ‘The Blue Cheese Wedge’ in my circles. My later Turbo would give a 1.9 205 GTI a good run for its money and when the turbo limiter stopped working one day turned it into a pocket rocket as well as braking some engine mountings!

My Dad also had an 850 T5 and I used to ‘borrow’ it, it was a huge success and Volvo used to claim it was faster than a 911 Turbo between 50-70mph (80-113kph), the T5 and 850R wheels rank among my favourite and Volvo even used the estate version for its touring car entry in 1994 much to everyone’s utter amazement it did quite well.

So when Volvo released their new C30 hatchback containing a T5 badge I was sold, opportunity arrived when we needed a second car and some credit crunch discounts at the dealer made it all possible. The great thing about this little car is it shares heritage with the Ford Focus RS, using the same engine though with different tuning and chassis.

To drive it’s as you would expect from a front wheel drive hot hatch with a turbo charger, it’s very possible to under steer and will happily wheel spin everywhere with the TC off. With a careful and light foot it has fantastic grip on corners and uses its 19inch rubber to really glue it down, this is where the car was its most fun and sadly there’s not enough roads here to really use it, the turbo adds a ton of torque which in longer corners really give it some speed and a sling shot on rails sensation.

Steering is accurate and a little heavy as it should be, suspension is smooth on the speed bumps but gives good feedback on the corners. It’s got most of the bells and whistles that modern cars come with and for the 3 years we owned it we enjoyed driving it, at speed it was very comfy and could happily reach 230kph, leather seat’s are quite laid back and low down and you feel snug. Good visibility up front though less on the rear and a nice light airy cockpit feel and the sounds system is pretty decent.

Now for the downside, there is only one, it’s a big one and it niggled away at me inside for all the time we owned it, I thought I’d get over it but I never did and is why I wasn’t too sad to see it go. This beautiful little powerful hot hatch with its stunning 2.5litre turbo engine is pretty quick, Volvo claim it can do 0-100 in a tickle over 6 seconds and I believe it!

But that’s if you’ve got the manual version which isn’t available here! Yes a moveable wobbly stick in the middle and an extra foot pedal. You see the automatic 5 gear box that they have stuck in is its biggest failing and Volvo’s biggest mistake, it takes a huge amount of power out of the engine to the extent that it takes the 0-100 to about 7 seconds, that’s a whole ONE second difference which is a huge performance decrease and it gets worse.

Put the tiptronic box into manual mode, say 3rd! approach a roundabout and floor it on the way out, it doesn’t stay in third, if it decides it can use even 800 revs of second gear it will change down taking time to do it and ruin your exit and your fun.

My wife doesn’t care, she likes auto’s, I don’t mind them too in big 4×4’s where they belong. The Volvo will still beat a Golf GTI off the lights, it’s got more power and should have more top speed and I’m willing to bet it’s better on the corners but it should thrash the GTI off the lights, beat the old R32 and not be far off the current Golf R, the auto box with it’s annoying ways ruins all that!

Would I have another one, a manual version YES and I heard Volvo were finally coming to the real world with some kind of DSG box, but the current auto? I’d probably choose the GTI.

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