All the Power It Needs - 2015 Volvo S60 Long-Term Road Test

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All the Power It Needs - 2015 Volvo S60 Long-Term Road Test

The high-tech four-cylinder in our 2015 Volvo S60 is an all-new way of delivering performance and efficiency. From the driver's seat, it does such a good job you'll never miss driving a six-cylinder sedan.

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kirkhilles1

Although the Volvo appears to be reliable from Consumer Reports standards, I'd be more concerned about the potential for expensive repairs on the super-turbo charger. If it fails, I'm sure it'd make a replacement Transmission look cheap.

allthingshonda

kirkhilles1 said:

Although the Volvo appears to be reliable from Consumer Reports standards, I'd be more concerned about the potential for expensive repairs on the super-turbo charger. If it fails, I'm sure it'd make a replacement Transmission look cheap.

Agree 100% about people scoffing at 4 cylinder engines and the expense of future super-turbo charger repairs. My TSX has a 4 cylinder engine and I would be lying if I didn't admit that this was almost a deal breaker for me. I haven't owned a 4 pot since college but because I have a long commute I took the chance for the fuel savings. Haven't regretted it one day. Yes, it will never win any drag races but I've never wanted for power even passing on 2 lane roads. And now that it's nipping at 150,000 miles I appreciate how easy it is to do my own maintenance. Spark plugs are right on top of the engine and changed in less than 30 minutes. Timing chain never needs changing and even the serpentine belt was easy to change.

Turbos are much better now than they were years ago but they still live a hard life. Spinning at hundreds of thousands of RPMs in incredible heat they will never last as long as the engine. They will also be expensive to replace depending on their location and design. For those of us that drive them to the end will it be worth it to replace a turbo on a 10 year old car with well over a 100,000 miles on it?

legacygt

I have to disagree. Yes, the smaller engine in this car is enough to make it a satisfying drive. But the problem (and this is going to sound strange) is that the engine is too small to hit its EPA efficiency numbers. When the engine is too small, it needs to rely on turbo and supercharging too much of the time and it ends up drinking fuel like a larger engine. The EPA test cycle favors small boosted engines (as it does in your F-150) but the real world is different. I had a similarly sized Subaru Legacy GT with a 2.5L Turbo. 10 years ago that car was both faster than this S60 and delivered better real world efficiency. The slightly larger engine enabled that car to drive like it had two personalities. You could keep the revs down and see efficiency in the high 20s but the boost was there whenever you wanted it.

mrvtecski

I have a TSX as well, the only major thing that failed on me was my starter the other day.. at 148k. These turbo cars make me nervous of the long term reliability. However, even Honda is introducing a turbo in their next gen Civic, so that can't be that bad. They were late to the party doing this, but I hope they have worked out all the "bugs".