2006 Volvo V50 Kinetic review from Germany

Nothing has gone wrong so far, except that I have an inkling that the rear seatbelt indicator isn't working correctly: I think that it only recognizes when the front seat users haven't belted up and not the rear seat users.

This car is a company car and therefore, I pay a monthly charge for it. As I had previously driven an Audi A3 that I was sad to give away, but couldn't afford an A4 Avant, I went for the 109bhp V50. After ordering the V50, I started to read up on the V50 engine and was wondering if I had made a mistake.

Certainly, the V50 is considerably slower than the A3 and doesn't handle like the A3 (I think my wife is sick of hearing me say this :-) ) but then the V50 wasn't built to be an A3 and it does it's job well. The car is great for driving around town and the occasional high-speed motorway run - we don't need more than this.

It is comfortable (has lots of extras that I would have had to shell out a lot for with an Audi) and safe. It has a reasonable size of luggage space, although I find that pockets in the passenger area of the car are lacking and the glove compartment isn't very usable. I got the following extras which I would recommend if you live in town and more than one driver uses the car:

- park assist

- electronically adjustable driver seat with memory function for three drivers

- the dala t-tec seats are also good

- alloys (to make it look even prettier)

- what I wish I had got, but didn't were the Xenon lights: again, I had them on the A3 but miss them on the V50.

What I don't like is the luggage space cover that greatly restricts the amount of space that you have for larger objects in the trunk. I have since taken it out and fitted the net roll instead.