As a 850 and V70 wagon owner, I thought I'd give my test impressions of the V50 2.4i wagon I had from the dealer as a loaner. (6K on the odo)

Things I liked....
- nice 5cyl growl
- the touch to pass turnsignals
- handling is great, suspension and steering is tight with good euro feel. It feels light, and turn-in is excellent. The wife said it reminded her of her Prelude when it was new... thats very good considering its a station wagon.
- the new powerspray headlight washers that pop out the bumper seemed to work pretty good
- the cool sharkfin type of radio antenna (cheaper than putting the antennae in the side window I suppose, but will probably be another ornament kids like to steal, like a Honda or Hyundai badge)

Things I didn't like....
- opening the doors, the feel of substance is gone and if you jiggle the door handle, or it slips out of your hand it sounds very tinny, kinda like a Kia or something. Same with the hatch. Other than that, the only other cheap looking item I noticed is the rearview mirror, and the side mirrors are pretty
small. The sun shade over the sunroof was very stiff to use... don't know how they would fix that.
- it really seems small and short compared to the 70. Its a Volvo about the width of the old Honda Accord stationwagon, but shorter. The first time I pulled up to a parking curb, I was about 4' short of where I thought I should stop !
- Higher rpm performance is good, but the new engine (non turbo) really lacks useful bottom end torque below 3-3.5K, which is not too good if you want to tow anything. Comparing it to my 01 V70 (non turbo) I can pull a light trailer with a single motorcycle on it and not have to take it over 2500rpm in 4th on
hilly roads, and can purr along the flats at 2K at an indicated 100kph. (91kph by gps)eg: in the V50, if you were cruising at 80-100km in manual mode in 5th, pushing on the gas gets you nothing, a flip on the shifter will give you a nice seamless shift into 4th but there is still not enough oomph for a safe fast pass. But, if you drop it into 3rd, the engine shoots from about 2500 to
3800rpm and then you are talking good acceleration, but now it starting to scream like a Honda vtec. The bonus is, the nice growl that starts above 3K. I see that it makes max torque at 4400, which for me gets a bit tiring after a while... I like big torque from 2500rpm or less for instant power. Again,
comparing to the old V70, a drop to 4th is usually enough, but a drop to 3rd only raises the rpm by about 500 or so and thats always enough to really get going, without any additional noise except for a muted growl.
- There is a fairly big gap between 2nd and 3rd compared to the rest of the gears, which for some reason is way more noticable during downshifts. Also, in manual mode, the automatic reacts pretty slow. Shifts took about 2 secs to go from one gear to the next, so you had to constantly remember about that delay
when using it. Some quick downshifts when braking hard would confuse it, and results may not be what you wanted... eg: 3 quick downshifts with braking from 5th, and you may end up coasting around a tight corner in 3rd, or screaming in 2nd (relatively speaking). If you have it floored and hit the 'up'
shifter at 5K it would rev to 6K by the time the shift actually happened, so shifting at redline is not recommended. Even though I prefer standard transmissions, and was looking forward to a tiptronic type auto, this
version was a disappointment for me. I really found that leaving it in 'D' was a better driving experience. I also got to drove it in the snow & ice, and manual mode was great for using engine braking to slow you down though.
One more transmission gripe... in real sequential shift rally cars and video driving games, its normal for the manual shift pattern to be back for up, forward for down. Its backwards in this car and as many others with this 'tiptronic' type shifter but its also backwards to the physics of driving. If you are pushed back in your seat accelerating, its easier to pull back than push forward.... and the opposite for braking.
- it may have been the Michelin MXV4 tires, but some pavement and road surfaces caused a lot of road noise, plus, at higher rpm (above 3K) the noise level starts to get annoying. It could use some more noise insulation, which would also help with the cheap 'pingy' doors.

Other Picky findings....
- the new flexible windshield wipers chattered badly especially for a new car with only 6K kms on it... I see that are twice as expensive too, as any non-standard type of wiper usually is.
- the rear wiper washer is poorly placed in the top corner of the window and it just kinda drains instead of sprays, which takes a lot more fluid to wash it very well. The V70 rear wiper is wayyy better.
- the fancy FM radio display has scrolling weather and song titles, but would stop for no reason. Kind of a hit/miss technology.
- the new electronic all-in-one key/fob is kinda big with a cheap looking plastic 'key' part. I have lost the occasional key, and I would not like to lose this one.
- I like to do most of my own maintenance, but I couldn't even see how you would get at the spark plugs, and the engine compartment is very tight. Tiny, when you consider its the same size engine in the 850 and V70. The hood is extremely short and light by comparison.

There you have it, use it as you may. Its a nice, smallish wagon, which could be a lot nicer with just a few pounds of insulating material and a better 2nd/3rd gear ratio. Maybe this would be addressed in the next model up with standard transmission.... but now I'm reading about some other electrical gremlins, so for me, I'll pass on this one and can't wait to try an S60.