The wagon appreciation thread

Duke said:

It's astounding how low it actually sits on the sport suspension.  The top of the roof is well below my eye level, and I'm not exceptionally tall. 

I think you just mean, "it has a normal roof height"** (which is good).  Its published at a little over 56" which is pretty common for modern cars that aren't tippy little b-spec E36 M3boxes.

**some lowering springs could fix that though :)

Nitroracer said:

I hope these new S60/V60 cars age well and the 2.0L Volvo has been using in everything doesn't have any hickups because these look amazing.  They distilled the large Volvo styling into a smaller package and I think it turned out very nice.  Someone at work recently picked up a XC60 plug-in in the same color as yours, the T8 I assume.  Let us know how you like the car once you get to know it! 

I hope they age well too, because we've got 2 cars with this drivetrain.  DW's is the turbo-only T5 and mine is the twin-charged T6, both AWD with the 8 speed trans.

I heard - probably here - that this engine is the same bottom end that they use in the diesels overseas.  Maybe that means good things for longevity.  The 8-speed trans shifts pretty fluidly but firmly, and doesn't hunt around.  It always seems to be in the right gear.

I bought this thing! 

I'm] so glad you got that one!

My son's 300TE.  $700. of Quality European Motoring Kombiwagen.

More pics later.

Duke said:

Here's my new Swedish longbeast.  Just rolled over 1,000 miles.  I may try autocrossing it in September.  I also want to get it down to Cecil County dragway and see how deep I can get it into the 13s.  It should be capable.

It's astounding how low it actually sits on the sport suspension.  The top of the roof is well below my eye level, and I'm not exceptionally tall.  I was holding the phone at waist level for these shots.  I do wish the roofline was a little more square and didn't taper so much to the back, more like Doc's Lancer Sportbak up there.

Thanks for looking!

I'm so glad that there's at least one new wagon in this thread. Otherwise it would all be about mourning for what's lost.

As for the profile of the rear ends, I suspect it has to do with aerodynamic drag and fuel efficiency. That squared off rear end that we like so much pulls a lot of turbulence behind the car.

My lancer gets surprisingly poor mileage, about 23 in mixed driving and 25 on our road trip last year. Of course, I tend to drive above 75. 

The designers have done the same thing to hatchbacks.

2010 Mazda 3.

2019 Mazda 3. Edit: I like the current three okay, but OMG, that's not an attractive profile!

A good friend of mine just bought a new Buick Regal TourX to replace his late VW wagon. I got to see and ride in this thing last week and I LOVED it. 

In reply to Powar :

I really like those.  I just wish they had actually decided to sell the lower, non-tupperware version here.  If they had, I definitely would have cross-shopped those with the Swedish longbeast.

In reply to Powar :

I've seen one at an autocross. It wasn't nimble.

Of course, that's not it's intended purpose. I'd love to own one.

Indy-Barely Functional-Guy said:

 This definately belongs here:

It delights me that a Wagon won the 2019 Challenge !

Congrats Travis!

The bright side to owning a Bangle 5-series is that even after 13 years, it still looks pretty new.

There's still really no newer car that interests me in my affordability range and I keep getting drawn to older and broken down German vehicles. I'd love a 300TD wagon that can run on vegetable oil; no idea why other than why not.

Its gets me round trip to work 120+ miles a day, without having to fill up more then once a week.  I'm hoping to push this thing to 400k miles.

Always want  AMG e63 or Jags new wagon. But then I realiaze I like reliablilty and 650 mile gas tank range. 

We test drove this and an e350 wagon recently.  Need to find an e400 wagon to try.  Cliff notes: Jag was great to drive and looks great but interior was underwhelming. The Mercedes was solidly made and well designed from excellent materials and had more room but was not as fun to drive. 
 

Glad this popped up again.  I can't believe I forgot to pimp my new ride here last month.  It maybe not quite as pimpy as Dukes new ride, but I do love the straight six turbo and with the Polestar tune it has 325/354 hp/tq.  It's no scalpel in the corners, but it's certainly a sledge hammer once the wheels are pointing ahead.

One of my favorites.

Adrian_Thompson said:

Glad this popped up again.  I can't believe I forgot to pimp my new ride here last month.  It maybe not quite as pimpy as Dukes new ride, but I do love the straight six turbo and with the Polestar tune it has 325/354 hp/tq.  It's no scalpel in the corners, but it's certainly a sledge hammer once the wheels are pointing ahead.

I thought these were all 4 or 5 cylinder...  TIL

I'm still carrying around sadness from dieselgate landing three days before buy-a-TDI day, and now they're ending the wagons completely. Bah. Watch me Tetris stuff into the Mini for another year and wind up with the Ford ESUV thing...

In reply to Ransom :

A good friend of mine turned in his manual trans TDi Polutowagen Passat wagon last year.  HE got a pretty big payout for turning it in, but I was begging him to take the money, get them to re-flash it then use the money to have a proper performance tune done after that.  Unfortunately he's now driving a new Chrysler Pacifica.  It his defense he owns many rentals and needs a work truck, and like any sensible person realizes pick ups are generally uselsss vehicles for building work.

Adrian_Thompson said:

Glad this popped up again.  I can't believe I forgot to pimp my new ride here last month.  It maybe not quite as pimpy as Dukes new ride, but I do love the straight six turbo and with the Polestar tune it has 325/354 hp/tq.  It's no scalpel in the corners, but it's certainly a sledge hammer once the wheels are pointing ahead.

It's pretty damn pimpy.  When I bought mine, I had the choice between the 2019 V60 R-Design I bought (with Polestar flash) and a leftover 2018 V60 Polestar, in the same Bursting Blue color, for approximately the same price.  With hardball, I probably could have gotten them to come down a bit further on the 2018.

I opted for the newer body style and interior, but I'm still not 100% convinced I made the right decision.  I really like your car.

In reply to Duke :

Thanks.  I really like your new body style, but I really like the old school straight 6 turbo vs the new small 4 cyl twin charged engine.  How much hp/tq do you get with the R-Design and Pole* tune?

Oooh, can I join you group of merry folk?  Long time long roofer lover and owner.  Strayed for a few years but couldn't resist returning.  I don't have a picture of the actual car at the moment, but it looks like this, except it's silver....

Yeah, yeah, I know.  GM, Cobalt underneath at that.  I've had one before and missed it the second I got rid of it.  It suits my needs perfectly.  Super cheap buy in, mine is an '09 that had only 41k miles and I got it for a song.  With 3 kids playing year round sports, mostly lacrosse, it does exactly what I need.  It holds all the cargo I need to get too/from practice and tournaments.  In this case, I actually love that the cargo hold and seat backs are a hard plastic. We can throw crap back there without damaging anything.  Has storage places where I need it.  Is relatively fuel efficient, and I personally like the exterior design.  Even the interior, while plastic fantastic, is well laid out with the controls and simple to use.  I've had mine for 3 weeks now and already put 4000 miles on it.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

For the T6 twincharged 2.0 4 cylinder, the P* flash bumps peak power from 316 hp / 295 lb/ft to 330 hp / 325 lb/ft, slightly higher in the rev range.  So it's still down a bit from the 6 cylinder.

In reply to Klayfish :

Having driven the two company HHRs to deliver and set up computers around half the state of Pennsylvania, and being rather tall (6'2"), I still have nightmares about my right knee being jammed up against the steering column in order for me to reach the wheel in those things. And nwe had problems with the brake rotors warping repeatedly, but it was a work van, so they may not have been broken in properly.

Otherwise, cool, nice, put a turbo on it.