Not good news after 18,000 miles the clutch has disintegrated, total ballache, not to mention the satnav update debacle that put the car off the road for best part of a week a few months ago, beginning to regret getting this car.

I wanted another Audi A4 Avant but after a bust up with them over delivery times or rather the lack of any definite delivery time I decided to plumb for the V60 DRIVe 115BHP instead, which to be fair would have been automatic first choice had I known the fully loaded V60 1.6D was the same contract hire rate as the lesser equipped A4 2.0D SE Teknik, so Audi did me a favour in some respects.

Notwithstanding, the lower BIK, definite availability, well priced options and stylish good looks made for a credible alternative to the previous stoic Germanic workhorse, not to mention the incredibly high quality feel, comfort and layout of the V60 interior, which is on a par if not better than the Audi.

The engine size needn't be a worry either, it's ample, if like me most of your miles are motorway, the 115bhp D2 engine chomps them up effortlessly and when in the user friendly cruise control mode the car sails along with Swan like grace, spinning at just over 2000rpm at 70mph, it is very smooth and quiet, however, it is when in this environment it becomes apparent there are some obvious gaffes with the cars design, the lack of a footrest for a mile muncher is just plain daft, short of wedging your foot under the clutch there is really nowhere comfortable for any length of time to put your left foot, another insane idea is to have the bonnet catch on the passenger side, why? is it penny pinching or an engineering oversight?, it just doesn't make sense why you would leave it there on a right hand drive vehicle?, another odd thing I can't quite get my head around either is when driving at night the instrument dials refect up, distractingly, onto the top of the windscreen, it's as though the dashboard canopy doesn't project out far enough, again, plain daft (IMHO), but maybe the most self defeating aspect of this car, if intended for high mileage fully maintained company car use, is the absence of a spare wheel, not even a space saver, therefore the prospect of getting (another) sidewall puncture for no apparent reason and having to phone Volvo 'assistance' and waiting for upto 2 hrs for recovery to a Volvo garage that might not even have a tyre in stock would drive me absolutely bonkers (again), especially if your miles away from home or godforbid anywhere remote, to make matters worse there isn't even a jack or brace supplied to get the wheel off so you can take the flat to a tyre centre yourself, so why not just fit run flats? it's barmy, in fact, this irritated me so much I considered asking the lease company to swap the car for something else.

Oddly, though, the bizarre position of the electronic brake doesn't bother me too much.

Conclusion - If Al Murray was reviewing this car I am sure it would be a resounding,

'They just didn't think it through did they'.....

Which is a pity because IMHO the car would be perfect if it wasn't for these fundemental flaws that surely could have been ironed out at the design/prototype stage.

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V60 D3 ES (manual gearbox)

reviewed by craig-pd130 on 5 September 2011