VOLVO C30 HATCHBACK REVIEW

My car

I have owned the C30 for 18 months from new. The gear shift is horrendous, it is extremly difficult to move up & down through the gears, often requiring a double clutch dip to acheive. As a 1.6 it is extremly underpowered around town. It has no punch to pull away from junctions, or even up slight inclines, the power just 'dies' when pulling away. To make use of the 5th gear requires speeds in execces of 40 mph. Once cruising spead is acheived however, there is no problem, it is just getting the car up to speed. On the plus side, the build & trim are very good. This is my 1st volvo & probably my last.

My car

Mines white (is that a typical female comment??) , Find this model is a headturner, very responsive but frugle engine, a joy to drive!! Had to have some brickwork removed in garage to allow me to get out of car though! (long door being only a 2 door car). My only gripe is that when I ordered the car I didn't realise that steering wheel mounted audio controls weren't standard (as they now seem to be on similar cars in this class and were on my 3 year old Astra!!) So I am having to live without them!! Have been told I can't have them retro-fitted either..boo hiss!!

My car

I traded in my peugot 307 1.4s for an 8 month old C30. I spent a lot of time looking around different manufactures to see what would be the best buy for me. My only criteria were that it had to be desiel and no more than £12k. I tired a ford focus, volkswagen golf and vauxhall astra but none of the compare to the volvo for build quality, drive quality and performance.

The vehicle i eventually found was an 8 month old ex demo car on clearance price becuase the dealer had been brought out. I paid £11995 which i thought was a brilliant price. It had 6000 miles on the clock, and a few extras like bluetooth phone communication pack, winter pack with heated seats, climate control, colour coded interior and sports trim pack. All the other cars i looked at all had at least 20k on the clock and nowhere near as high spec as the volvo.

Performance wise the volvo is fantastic, you get barely and turbo lag and you got power in all 6 gears. Even putting your foot down in 6th you can feel the turbo kick in and pull away quickly. I took it a local air field to see how much i could get out of it and i managed 125mph and it still had more left in it but i ran out of run way. Its ability to go from 60 to 100 is incredible, it takes hardly any time at all and you do have to be careful on the motor way becuase it wants to go fast!

Over all a fantastic car... i would recommend it to anyone.

My car

I've owned this car for two weeks now. I found it hard to choose - I had a budget of £10k-12k and wanted to have a decent upgrade from my 2000 reg 1.4tdi se polo. I looked at Golfs, but I didn't feel I got much for my money and didn't really like the shape of the newer ones. I was determined to go for German or Swedish because I feel the build quality is so much better.

I'd set out wanting a C30 but the price for a 1.6D 1-2 years old was about £15k. Taking out a loan, the repayment was just too much for what the car would be valued at after four years. I spent ages researching all the other possible models, including the Citroen DS3 but eventually came back to the Volvo because I thought the R-Design was sporty but without the crazy insurance category.

I eventually went for the 1.6 petrol version because I only go 4 miles to work and the DPF in a diesel would clog up quickly on short journeys. I got a 2yr old R Design,18k miles for £12,250 with 1 yrs tax + 1 yrs warranty. The salesman couldn't have been more helpful and not pushy at all, especially as this was my first car purchase on my own.

The car is great to drive, I love the 2 tone seats and climate control. I admit the drive can be a little hard with the sports suspension but can overlook this for everything else. Also, there's no option to see your mpg, standard on most cars!

I bought this because I didn't want to have something everyone else was driving. It's safe, it's sexy. Forget the Volvo snobbery and