Volvo just recently introduced the V60 Estate, and it was a huge departure over the outgoing model. It featured a sportier, more attractive design to go with an interior that was suitable to actually compete with the likes of Audi and BMW. That’s something the old model, with its heavily outdated interior, just couldn’t do. There’s no denying that Volvo put a lot of work into revamping the V60, but a lot of that work was borrowed from the larger S90, so it’s not exactly new DNA. Be that as it may, Volvo believes the new V60 is worthy of a price tag that is more than $10,000 higher than that of the outgoing model – now that’s one hell of a price hike.

The truth is, Volkswagen has only released pricing for the U.K., where it will carry a window sticker that reads £31,810 or £7,665 more than the outgoing model. Do the currency conversion (Accurate as of May 18, 2018), and that computes to $42,890 or $10,334 more expensive. Volvo claims that the higher pricing is due to the step up in engineering, quality, and equipment. The equipment we can certainly agree on as the last model had an infotainment screen that looked like it was borrowed from 2008, to be honest.

In the end, though, that Volvo’s excuse for such a massive price hike only goes so far. Sure, it’s nicer, more attractive, and more technologically advanced, but the real reason is that it finally brings the pricing of the V60 inline with the Audi A4 Avant and BMW 3 Series Wagon. Volvo insists it will offer more equipment for the money, though, so maybe it won’t be so bad. Either way, a big selling point for the old V60 was that it was on the high side of affordable and now it officially moves into luxury pricing territory.

Sure, maybe it fits in the luxury category better. And, it does fit there better, but Volvo could have done much better to keep the pricing in a lower bracket compared to the competition. Either way, when it comes to the states, it’ll probably carry a price tag very similar to the A4 Allroad and the 3 Series Sport Wagon, its two main competitors in this market.

References

Read our driven review of the 2017 Volvo S90.

Read our full review of the recently released 2019 Volvo V60.

Read more Volvo news.