VOLVO C30 2.0 R DESIGN Sport 3dr (2007)

Volvo C30 - Excellent fuel usage, fun to drive but a bit impractical

Once the kids had gone we wanted a car that was a bit smaller and economical, but I also encountered a bit of a mid life crisis and wanted something fun too. We had a look round some others but settled on the Volvo C30 having had good experiences with Volvo in the past. I'd originally wanted to veer away from Volvos because they all look the same, but this one really doesn't. It's nice and modern looking.

We got the diesel C30 which is bafflingly quiet, we're really not sure how they've done it. I wouldn't say it quite gets the 50MPG we were promised, but near as dammit, which is a major step up from previous cars. We were told that some other versions of this car supposedly get free car tax as they're even more efficient, but they didn't have any of those in and this is cheap enough for us to run.

As part of my mid life crisis I recently purchased a portable music player, which this car is able to connect to, and without any wires. I was very impressed, and I almost squeezed a compliment out of my kids about it.

One down side is that we might have been a bit impulsive in getting a car with only 3 doors. It's true we don't really ferry the kids round anymore, but our friends are ageing just as we are, and if we ever have to take them anywhere they have an awful job getting into the back, and not much fun once they're back there. The leg and head room are hardly luxurious, and meanwhile the boot makes it difficult to get four people's things in there for trips. Other silly things include the glovebox which is very daft indeed, extremely small. Practical the car is not really, but it is great fun to drive, and we just take the other car for groups now.

One thing I really enjoy about the C30 is the built in sat nav. We do have a standalone one of these in our other car and it's so much simpler just to have it inside the car. I'm also very pleased with the way it flips up from the top of the dash. We tried some other cars where the sat nav was lodged in the central panel along with all the heating controls and things, which I found was very hard to be looking down at whilst driving. It's much better to have it up top where you can easily see it. All in all the car is a good giggle but not really a good choice for practical day to day usage.