Opinions on the Volvo S40 T5?

nichorob

nichorob

nichorob

Soldato
Joined
1 Apr 2003
Posts
5,244
Location
London
Its nearly new car time for me and have been looking at the usual suspects around the £8k - £9k mark, a friend at work has a Volvo S40 T4 and absolutely swears by it although he is a bit of a Volvo fanboy. He is trying to convince me to get a S40 T5 now a mint, low mileage example is within my price range. You seem to get a lot of car for your money but i'm still swaying towards the idea of the BMW E46 (possibly 330x) although I like the look of the T5 to be a bit different.

Reviews online seem to be favorable although I thought I would ask here to get another opinion.
 
I had one for about 18 months. Very comfortable, nice to drive, lovely smooth engine with plenty of oomph, but very thirsty. Boot is pretty big, but opening is tiny which limits what you can get into it. If you decide to go for one try and get one with the Premium audio (easily spotted by the extra speaker on top of the dash) as the Prologic II sounds really good.
Ask away if you have any specific questions.
 
I had a T4 for a couple of years, it was a great car nice to drive, nice bit of power, especially with a pretty cheap 40BHP upgrade. Only sold as it was getting rather high mileage but i expect its still going strong, would get another one or like you a T5. I couldnt find a car with the same spec, reliabilty and performance for the same money.
 
I assumed it was rather thirsty! All I have is review MPG figures, what would I realistically be expecting with your standard motorway cruising as that where it would spend 90% of its life. Comparable to a E46 330i?
 
I'm currently driving a V70 2.5T which is the lower pressure turbo. It's automatic as well which sucks a bit more fuel.

Over the last 2000 miles i've averaged 28mpg which considering I do a mixture of town and motorway at about 50/50 i think is pretty good.

I'd imagine a newer T5 should get similar or only slightly worse.
 
I was expecting around the 25mpg mark so anything more would be a bonus.

I just need convincing that my money would be best spent on the Volvo than a 330x. I was 99% sure on the 330 before I found the S40 and i'm nearing more and more to the Volvo every day. I suppose the next step would be to sort a test drive in both and go from there.
 
I averaged about 26mpg, but that was driving pretty sedately most of the time. Short commute to work didn't help though. On a long run it was much closer to 40mpg. Great to drive on a motorway as it has loads of torque, so you can pretty much stick it in 6th and leave it. Mine was an SE and I liked the fact that it was pretty anonymous apart from a small boot lid spoiler and the twin exhausts.
 
very nice place to be. the engine's nice and relaxed and it doesn't really like to be revved highly. you might find youself driving in a much more relaxed manner than in a BMW. i do with my mum's V50 anyway :p

the 5 pots are very thirsty though, you probably will get better fuel economy with a 3 series.
depends what you want really. an s40 at this price will probably be lower mileage than an equivalent 3 series, but the volvo isn't anywhere near as 'sporty'

both good cars. i'd probably get the T5 as they aren't as common :p
 
Currently rebuilding the engine on my old mans 850 T5 , and if the newer engines are anything like the older ones they are so over-engineered that it would survive multiple nuclear blasts, and its fairly quick.
 
Frank Butcher said:
I assumed it was rather thirsty! All I have is review MPG figures, what would I realistically be expecting with your standard motorway cruising as that where it would spend 90% of its life. Comparable to a E46 330i?
Click to expand...

Just read this post, I can get anything up to 37mpg on a motorway run, again from the 2.5T. They are geared - or mine is at least - so that at 70mph the turbo is just wafting the car along at about 2.5k which combined with overdrive on my S reg auto, probably 6th gear on a newer T5 is very economical for a car of this nature. If you want to accelerate you get the turbo straight away, but then it is quite thirsty.

What i will say is can you actually use the performance of the T5 and would you be better off going either for the 2.5T or the 2.5 20 valve engine? My 2.5T is very fast, and you really can't use the performance on the roads in this country except in very short bursts or the traffic light grand prix (Great against chavvy Saxos :D). Id suggest that the 20 valve 2.5 is more than adequate in the performance stakes (exactly the same as the turbo version without the kick in the rear after 2.5k), cheaper to buy, and will use less fuel.

Just a thought :)
 
If you can find a D5 version then IMO go for that. They can be chipped to the same power but wayyyy more torque than the T5 (228HP and 466Nm torque on the 2008 V70 we have here), does 40MPG on the motorway and around town 30 if you drive normally (IE not flooring it all the time).

If not the T5 is a dam good engine :p
 
Yea but if you want a T5, or a 330, the D5 really is not going to do it at all, totally different power delivery, especially compared to the 330, totally different noise, just totally different sort of thing really. The 330i/CI Sport is sporty, the T5 is more relaxed sports touring and the D5 is a diesel volvo :p ...good though it is, it's hardly the same sort of thing.
 
The Edge said:
What i will say is can you actually use the performance of the T5 and would you be better off going either for the 2.5T or the 2.5 20 valve engine? My 2.5T is very fast, and you really can't use the performance on the roads in this country except in very short bursts or the traffic light grand prix (Great against chavvy Saxos :D). Id suggest that the 20 valve 2.5 is more than adequate in the performance stakes (exactly the same as the turbo version without the kick in the rear after 2.5k), cheaper to buy, and will use less fuel.

Just a thought :)
Click to expand...

The T5 in the S40/Focus ST is pretty much the 2.5T in the bigger Volvo's - it's not the same as the T5 in the S60/S80
 
This thread has tipped me over to the S40.

Just booked an appointment to take a look at an 54 reg S40 T5 on Saturday, 26k miles, mint condition, metallic silver, full leather, xenons, the upgraded sound system as stated above and some more extras as well as a full Volvo service history and it is up for £8995. Sounds too good to be true, such a lot of car for the money, especially if I can knock the price down with a cash offer.
 
Frank Butcher said:
This thread has tipped me over to the S40.

Just booked an appointment to take a look at an 54 reg S40 T5 on Saturday, 26k miles, mint condition, metallic silver, full leather, xenons, the upgraded sound system as stated above and some more extras as well as a full Volvo service history and it is up for £8995. Sounds too good to be true, such a lot of car for the money, especially if I can knock the price down with a cash offer.
Click to expand...

Good deal. I managed to get a Saab 9-3 aero (210bhp) 54 plate fssh with a fair 90k on for half that though, near as same spec too.
 
Frank Butcher said:
This thread has tipped me over to the S40.

Just booked an appointment to take a look at an 54 reg S40 T5 on Saturday, 26k miles, mint condition, metallic silver, full leather, xenons, the upgraded sound system as stated above and some more extras as well as a full Volvo service history and it is up for £8995. Sounds too good to be true, such a lot of car for the money, especially if I can knock the price down with a cash offer.
Click to expand...

good man.
they really are very good value for money

silver is a bit boring, but apart from that i can't really see much wrong with it :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom