Volvo Moved More Wagons Than Sedans In Canada In February 2015

Cameron Aubernon
by Cameron Aubernon

Volvo is having a hard time moving most of its wares out of the showroom in Canada, with its wagons being the silver lining to its cloud.

Good Car Bad Car reports overall Volvo sales are down 16 percent so far in the first two months of 2015, following a fall of 62 percent between 2005 and 2014. However, the Sino-Swede automaker managed to sell 54 V60s in February, compared to 27 units of the S60. Thirty-one XC70s and four S80s left the showroom that month, as well.

Of course, the best-selling Volvo in Canada that month was not a wagon, but the XC60, with 101 sold; 113 left the lot in January.

Cameron Aubernon
Cameron Aubernon

Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.

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  • Don1967 Don1967 on Mar 17, 2015

    Four S80s... that's a huge improvement from November when they sold zero. I love my S80, but not as a $60,000 car. Like many enthusiasts I love it as a premium used car for the price of a new Camry. Why Volvo doesn't swallow its pride and reposition it as such is a mystery to me. The strategy worked for Nissan when they slashed 25% off the early-1990s Maxima, turning a failed Lexus competitor into a strong Camry competitor and gaining loyal customers who buy Nissans to this day. The strategy should be even easier on the S80, whose retooling costs were paid off years ago.

  • "Sino-Swede automaker" Does Geely owning Volvo really make Volvo part Chinese? Doesn't Geely just fund them and product development is all done by Volvo in Sweden? The reason I ask is because I notice every Volvo article (or the comments attach to Volvo articles) loves to mention the fact a Chinese automaker owns them. I think where a car is engineered and developed determines where they're from. Example, I view the Ford Focus as a German car, fully developed by Ford's German branch. Tata owns Jaguar-Land Rover so does that make a Jaguar F-Type and Indo-English car? I never see that mentioned. Great article none the less, just pure curiosity.

    • Barksdale Barksdale on Mar 23, 2015

      Totally agree with this comment. The next thing the "Truth" About Cars will tell us is that Budweiser is a Belgian ale and that a Dodge Charger is an Italian Sportscar. I think there's anxiety about China in a red-scare kind of way. I find Volvo's ownership by PRIVATE company Geely (who has to battle the Chinese government to make inroads) less troubling than the joint ventures that VW/Audi, Merc, etc have with Chinese STATE-owned manufacturers.

  • VenomV12 VenomV12 on Mar 17, 2015

    My prediction is the new XC90 will be a monster seller for Volvo.

  • Pdl2dmtl Pdl2dmtl on Mar 17, 2015

    I will stick my neck out and say: Canadians are practical people. When you see same air conditioning issues repeating model after model, undersized suspensions, cheap plastics, a car that is made by people living in a colder climate and cannot warm inside and the heated seats being the only re-deeming quality in a cold winter day, gremlins in the electronics, ABS modules that need re-soldering, etc. (need I continue?). Not to mention they are so friggin' expensive..... Polestar blue? Maaco can duplicate that with no problem on any car.

    • See 1 previous
    • Frownsworth Frownsworth on Mar 18, 2015

      @don1967 He isn't alone on Volvo's subpar reliability if you count the last decade. TrueDelta paints Volvo just above Jaguar at the 6th least reliable brand if you choose data from 2006-2014, for example. Take the data from 2004-2014 and you get Volvo being the 4th worst. So you can see how they were doing in the 2000's compared to VW, which is ranked 12 places above Volvo and on par with GM/Chevrolet. Volvo in Canada is unfortunately disdained by quite a lot of boomers because of the reliability issues from first hand experience. Although this is anecdotal, it is supported by hard data from, for example, True Delta.

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