Volvo S60 (P3)

The Volvo badge appears on not just cars, but also semi trucks, heavy industrial equipment, marine engines, and even some jet engines. In 1999, Volvo elected to sell off the automotive part of its business, and the now-separate Volvo Cars was picked up by Ford Motor Company, becoming a part of their Premier Automotive Group alongside Jaguar, Land Rover, and Aston Martin. By 1999, Volvo's new flagship on their new P2 platform, the S80, had already been released, and development on the soon-to-be-released S60 and V70 midsize cars was just finishing up; these P2s can be regarded as the last "pure" Volvos, and Ford soon began leveraging its global reach to integrate the companies.

For an automaker, "integration" means shared parts and shared platforms, and Volvo, Mazda, and Ford of Europe engineers put their heads together in Ford's Cologne, Germany design center to co-develop the compact P1 platform, also known as the Ford C1 platform and the Mazda BK platform, underpinning the S40/V50/C30, European Focus, and Mazda3 respectively. As with the P2 platform underpinning multiple sizes of car and crossover, Volvo and Ford extensively re-engineered the new P1 compact platform to a full-size format. The resulting "EUCD" (European Class D segment) platform for mid- and full-size cars became known as the P3 in Volvo usage, and after the debut of their S80 flagship and V70/XC70 wagon, Volvo debuted the next-generation S60 in 2010 for the 2011 model year.

The S60 brought some new engines to the table, featuring gasoline versions of either Volvo's long-lived 2.5L turbocharged five cylinders or a 3.0 turbocharged "SI6" inline six, designed by Volvo and built by Ford of Britain. All engines were paired with the Aisin-Warner TF-80SC 6-speed automatic transmission, with Haldex AWD optional on the T5 and standard on the T6. 

The ubiquitous "white block" turbo five had most of the kinks ironed out by the time it appeared under the hood of the S60. It's the same "compact" version that appears in the smaller P1 cars, and keeping the PCV system, engine mounts, and timing belt in good health will keep this engine running for many years.

The SI6 engines were specially developed by Volvo to fit transversely (sideways) in the engine bay of FWD cars, and they feature some unique engineering tricks to do this: the timing chain, accessory belt drive, and components like the alternator and A/C compressor have been relocated either to the sides of the engine (driven via special gears off the middle of the crankshaft) or to the "back" end of the engine, above the transmission and driven by gears off the end of the crankshaft.

We've found these "short six" engines to be pretty stout, but they have an achilles heel: the brake vacuum pump. Above the transmission and driven by the camshafts, this pump often develops leaks from the o-ring where the pump bolts to the engine, and the oil dripping down can appear like expensive transmission or rear main seal leak when viewed from underneath. We offer both a reseal kit and new pumps for this purpose.

A special, high-performance variant of the T6 bowed in 2014 in the USA as the S60 Polestar, along with its V60 Polestar wagon counterpart. In addition to increased power from a twin-scroll turbocharger and high-flow exhaust, the Polestar featured special interior and exterior trim (and unique Polestar Blue paint), Öhlins suspension, Brembo brakes, and more aggressive Haldex AWD and transmission programming, including launch control. 

In the final two years of S60 production, a new "modular" 2L inline four (also known as the Volvo Engine Architecture or "VEA" engine) appeared in T5 turbocharged and T6/Polestar twincharged (turbo- and supercharged) guises, paired with an Aisin-Warner TG-81 8-speed automatic; in the Polestar, the lighter and more powerful VEA and the quicker transmission dropped the 0-60 time to a very brisk 4.4 seconds. These new engines were a great swan song for the P3s, with the last ones being sold in 2018 before the new SPA-based third-generation S60 launched in 2019.

Model information is based on the USA vehicle market. Other model variations may exist outside the USA.