Life is grand

It has been a week with our Volvo V50 and all is going well. We’ve taken it to Carlow, Cork and back without a fault. Cruise-control has completely spoiled me by now, even on my daily commute to work. The rain sensor works well for the Irish summer while the heated-seats and dual-zone aircon heat, cool and soothe. The turbo-diesel engine is taking some getting used to but it doesn’t lack for power when needing to overtake and ticks over smoothly under cruise-control. The 1.6l diesel is on target for 900 kilometers on a 52 litre tank. Having previously owned only small cars I am impressed with how much more relaxed, and safe, a “premium” car feels. You don’t notice the miles going under the wheels and there is far less road and wind noise in the cabin. The leather seats are mighty comfy too. Scandinavian design has made for one of the nicest dashes I’ve seen; the “floating” center console is uncluttered and very easy to use. In comparison I test-drove a Ford Kuga the other day and honestly could not figure out how to turn the radio on. The V50 interior is elegant, functional, simple and solid.

I haven’t yet had a chance to properly test the Bi-Xenon lights as Irish days are long and bright this time of year. No doubt during winter I will be grateful for Xenon.

We bought it from Autoboland in Waterford. A nicer car sales experience I’ve not had. Nick answered all our questions and entertained us as we test-drove the maple red Volvo while Pat made short work of the finance and trading my Ford Fiesta in. Once again, compared to the Ford garage down the road Volvo is a class above (and yet Ford owns Volvo, odd that.)

Some specs for the years to come; 2008 style-model Volvo V50 SE 1.6l diesel (registered September 2007.) Maple red with winter pack. Bi-Xenon lights. Rain sensors. Calcite leather interior with heated seats. 17″ alloy wheels with Pirelli tyres.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.