Used hybrids: Audi Q5 vs Volvo XC60 costs

What will they cost? 

New, the XC60 was the more expensive of these two by just under £1000. Now, bought at a year old, it's the cheaper car by around £500. More importantly, perhaps, both cars will save you a good sum over buying one new, with the Q5 saving you £13,000 and the XC60 over £14,000 – both positive returns. 

Although these cars have official fuel economy figures of more than 100mpg, most people won’t be able to achieve anything like that unless they do mostly short trips and recharge the battery after each one. In our tests, with no pure electric range remaining, both cars averaged around 30mpg – not bad, given their size and performance.

You can charge either car's battery by plugging a cable into a domestic three-pin socket. A fill from empty takes around seven hours with the Q5 and eight with the XC60. A Type 2 cable (supplied by Audi but a £50 extra from new from Volvo) enables faster charging, but 0-100% will still take about 2hr 30min with the Q5 and 3hr 15min with the XC60.

As far as running costs go, both cars are pretty even. The XC60 will cost you a fraction more to insure over three years, about £200, according to our running cost data, but the Q5 should be about the same amount cheaper to service over that same time period. 

We don’t have specific reliability data for these plug-in hybrids, but in our 2020 What Car? Reliability Survey the Q5 finished fourth out of 22 cars in the large SUV class, while the XC60 finished in 10th place. Audi as a brand finished in 22nd place out of 31 manufacturers, while Volvo finished in 16th place. 

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