► Introducing Volvo’s latest seven-seater
► We live with the XC90 as a daily driver
► How the D5 squares up to T8 and T6
Month 8 running a Volvo XC90: the conclusion to our long-term test
The XC90 is the poster boy of New Volvo, responsible for spearheading the reinvention of the brand as a slick Swedish premium alternative to the established Anglo-Saxon badges you’ll see clogging up most company car parks up and down the land.
It’s a classic top-down approach: Gothenburg’s Chinese masters, Geely, elected to relaunch Volvo with a posh-roader carrying chunky prices and a new executive wardrobe. The rationale? If they get this flagship right, the smaller, cheaper models should fly off the shelves faster than the lunchtime meatballs at the Ikea sale.
Which is why we’ve just eight months in the XC90, to rate their chances. Stuff this up, and it could spell curtains for Volvo’s renaissance outside the Ford fold. Get it right… well, we could be seeing the brand cycle up the sales charts and close the gap to Mercedes-Benz, Audi et al.
KN65 SLZ arrived early in 2016 and rapidly settled into life on the CAR magazine fleet. Big SUVs always prove popular in the office: perfect for shipping the staff on a night out (seven seats as standard accommodate everyone bar two), coping in slippery conditions (all-wheel drive and M&S tyres see to that) and pampering in extreme Swedish comfort (ours is loaded with £16k of extras).
It’s a mighty fine cabin. The XC90’s crowning achievement is the bit you’ll notice everyday – the cool, minimalist interior. Materials used throughout are first-rate with a stylish mix of metallics, leather and smart plastics, and the interior felt as solidly made and luxurious as the miles ticked towards five figures as it did on day one. Only the absurdly stained blond leather let the side down (they left a delicate shade of Levis blue).
That was a rare blip in an otherwise faultless spell at CAR. Nothing went wrong mechanically and our test ended before we had a chance to sample the dealer network. We loved the paintwork, by the way; Twilight Bronze looked mega in the metal and in pictures. We’d choose it again.
What else would we change? Not a huge amount, to be honest. The D5 is still the model to choose; as detailed in our earlier report (published on carmagazine.co.uk), the cost/power/thrift/tax argument isn’t so convincing on the T6 petrol and T8 Twin Engine alternatives. We averaged 32mpg, with occasional forays into the high 20s. This is a large, relatively thirsty car.
Optional 21-inch wheels (£1450) looked great but we’d shrink the rims if we were speccing our own from scratch, to the benefit of ride comfort and replacement costs. The £575 Winter Pack is great if you live in frosty climes – with toasty heated seats, wheel and windscreen, reducing front-window scrapery to sub-zero. Mind you, it rendered the luxurious auxiliary oil-fired heater obsolete. It’s hard to justify spending £1270 on that, despite the ability to programme the cabin to a predetermined warmth. Volvo 1, cold winter mornings 0.
Many other options fitted to our car were similarly extravagant: £400 for an illuminated tailgate scuff plate? And £275 for the Family Pack’s electro-pop-down rear headrests? Who needs this stuff? Head to our website’s Reviews section to see a full breakdown of how we’d spec our dream XC90.
Special mention to the ludicrously over-specified stereo, Bowers & Wilkins’ first in an SUV. With 19 speakers, kevlar composite cones and ‘tweeter-on-top’ tech to avoid acoustic reflections around the echoingly large cabin, the sound is rich, crisp and pure whether you choose the Studio, Individual or Gothenburg Concert Hall settings.
Like most of the Volvo XC90’s systems, you operate this through the Sensus display. It’s a portrait-orientated touchscreen and worked well enough, but feels a little bit v1.0 compared with rivals’ systems. There are no hard or soft buttons, meaning you swipe, press and pinch your way around every navigation menu – with occasionally frustrating results.
Having spent more than half a year with the car, I eventually clicked with the infotainment system, but believe it will mature in to a better product in future. The mapping, in particular, is not a patch on the Germans’, whose navs set the benchmark for clarity and ease of use.
The rest of the car’s digital architecture is spot-on, though. It synced with all our phones. It beamed up album artwork and callers’ faces. We loved the simple, easy-to-read digital instruments. The £1500 Intellisafe Pro pack brought adaptive cruise control and all manner of autonomous features; it actually drove itself most of the way to Norfolk once with hardly any steering input at all – fiendishly clever stuff, but we still don’t trust such systems.
It’s telling that we spend more and more time assessing cars’ electronic dynamics above the handling kind. But the XC90 is a lovely car to drive and waft around in. I still missed a six-cylinder engine choice, the compulsory 2.0-litre four-pot growling and grumbling under load a little too much for my liking.
We left our car’s drive mode in Comfort 24/7. Dynamic feels wrong in a car like this (it suits a relaxed gait, not a hard charge) and the Eco setting introduces a degree of fuzzy slush to proceedings. Much better to breathe deep, enjoy that feelgood cabin and sit back in those fabulously comfy seats.
This is a highly desirable car – reflected in strong residual values. Our car, laden with extras, would be sold within 10% of its purchase price after 10,000 miles and would command a part-exchange value of £55k. The market loves cars like this, even post-Dieselgate.
Volvo’s gone and managed the difficult second album, with aplomb.
Count the cost
Cost new £66,625 (including £16,440 of options)
Dealer sale price £61,470
Private sale price £57,665
Part-exchange price £55,125
Cost per mile £17p
Cost per mile including depreciation £2.11
Logbook: Volvo XC90 D5 AWD Inscription
Engine 1969cc 16v 4cyl turbodiesel, 222bhp @ 4250rpm, 361lb ft @ 1750-2500rpm
Gearbox Eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
Stats 7.4sec 0-60mph, 137mph, 152g/km CO2
Price £50,185
As tested £66,625
Miles this month 725
Total miles 8406
Our mpg 32.1mpg
Official mpg 48.7mpg
Fuel this month £63.98
Extra costs £0
By Tim Pollard
Month 7 running a Volvo XC90: secret diary of a waft-roader
The charms of this Swedish blonde are obvious, but go deeper. She’s practical, civilised and beautifully made too. Marry!
Scandinavian flick!
The first XC90 was one of the pioneers of the seven-seat MPV-challenging crossover set back at launch in 2002. Access is remarkably straightforward in the Mk2 – the middle row of seats flicks back and forth and you can clamber in easily enough (if not elegantly; for proof, see left).
Cattle class
Once installed – and seats slid back – the third row is okay. As in, nowhere near as commodious as the outgoing Discovery’s, but adults can fit in for short hops. Headroom’s fine, but legroom will pinch taller grown-ups’ kneecaps. It’s brilliant for kids back there – and the flexibility of seven seats is a real boon.
In fact it’s a WUV
Don’t pick a Volvo XC90 if you want to corner your crossover like a sports utility vehicle. This is more of a WUV – with W for Waft. Where an X5 or Cayenne will demolish a sinewy back road, this car is much more at home on a laidback school run. Ease off and enjoy the comfy, family-focused cabin is our advice.
Not heavy metal
The attention to detail in the Volvo’s cabin is first-rate. Just look at the door card. No quickly pressed black squidge here – ours is beautifully finished in real leather, cool metallics and only the classiest of man-made materials. We love the look – and sound – of those stunning perforated aluminium Bowers & Wilkins speakers.
By Tim Pollard
Month 6 running a Volvo XC90 D5: when first-class is cheaper than economy
Don’t know about you, but I don’t live in the foothills of the Rockys. Or wade the River Nene every weekend. But there’s still something guiltily attractive to outbound families about the new breed of luxury SUVs clogging up our streetscape. They’re roomy (the XC90 seats seven, or five and bags aplenty). They’re comfy (ours has a fab-u-lous cabin and great chairs). And they connect into those active lifestyle daydreams many of us harbour (all-wheel drive is standard, as is lashings of family chic). There really was only one contender when it came to choosing a car for the annual Pollard trip to the Alps. Our Volvo looked better equipped with its Mud and Snow all-weather ski boots and high-visibility raised driving position than any other car on fleet.
Do you ever drive to the Continent? Or are you a fly/rent kind of family? I’ve always preferred DIY, whereas Mrs Pollard is more of a flier. I suspect many CAR readers fancy the romance of a European road trip and have had similar debates at home. Once I’d massaged, sorry, crunched the numbers and persuaded her that it’s cheaper to drive, her ears pricked up.
Thing is, mathematics never was my strong point… Would it really work out less to pay for fuel, two Channel crossings, tolls and endless autoroute baguettes than flying a family of four to Geneva and hiring a car at the other end? And what about that most precious of commodities, time? Surely BA would beat XC? We were about to find out. Pollardian pride was at stake.
You can moan all you like about towering SUVs and their colossal footprints, but when push comes to shove (that’s how I pack for a week in the mountains) there really is no substitute for a big 4×4. The 4950mm-long Volvo’s loadbay is echoingly large and beautifully furnished to boot; I’d feel guilty filling the five-seater’s 1102 litres with firewood or slushy skis, but it’s perfect for a family break.
Everything squeezed in just fine, though we did have to remove the load cover for this trip. I continue to be amazed by the flimsily old-tech nature of tonneau covers on most modern cars, but the XC90’s is one of the better ones. It’s ironic that when you most need to hide your luggage – when it’s full to the brim on holiday – you are unable to. At least KN65 SLZ sports gangsta-spec black-out windows, effectively hiding our valuables from prying eyes.
Our timetable dictated an overnight crossing from Portsmouth to Le Havre, returning via Eurotunnel. The Volvo fitted on Brittany Ferries just fine, although it was rim-wincingly tight to board the train on the return leg. Never before have I breathed in so much, wondering why parking bays and Chunnel carriages haven’t kept pace with vehicular inflation and supersized cars. This one’s over two metres wide, dammit.
All that bulk masks some devilishly clever technology, though, designed to make long road trips more bearable. Most modern registration plates incorporate European GB ovals (an interesting anomaly in this post-Brexit age) so there was no need for anything as downmarket as a sticker to be applied. Nor did we have to attach headlamp converters, thanks to high-tech switchable lights. The Volvo’s beams are brilliant, working just as well in left-hand-drive spec as regular RHD setting, flicking up and down more reliably than on my similarly LED-equipped Audi TT.
The XC90 monstered western France, skirting past the choked banlieues of Paris, four-pot 2.0-litre turbodiesel a distant whirr in eighth gear as we set the cruise control to auto-pilot to manage a predetermined distance to the car in front. If only it worked in reverse, to keep those pesky speeding Belgians at a safe distance off our back bumper. The Volvo is a reminder how today’s modern execs are stepping-stone products to fully autonomous driving. All-seeing cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors are the building blocks of driverless cars, and so we found ourselves being semi-piloted to our end destination of Flaine in the Haute Savoie mountain range, much of it driven by the big Swede itself.
Quick tip for anyone considering driving across France regularly: get yourself a Sanef Toll Tag, which lets you play Frenchman and sail through toll booths without stopping. The tiny matchbox-sized tag fits by your rear-view mirror, letting you drive through the Télépéage lane, the transponder automatically debiting your bank account a month later. Works well, saves valuable time and well worth it in smugness points alone, every time you pass irate queues of holidaymakers at peak times.
The fuel tank on the XC90 has a capacity of 71 litres, which meant filling up every 450 miles or so. We only had to juice up three times on this holiday (see panel of costs). It’s an irony that modern weight-saving, and obsession with cutting CO2, shrinks reservoir sizes – leading to annoyingly frequent refuelling. But we managed 32mpg over 1697 miles on our Alpine adventure. Still a mile off the quoted 48.7mpg average, yes, but around par considering the high-speed cruising and mountain passes we encountered.
It’s fair to say the big Volvo excelled at motorway waft more than it did at snakeback wiggle. It’s not a fun car to punt along sinewy hillsides; an X5 or Cayenne would demolish it for corner-carving thrills and its 222bhp is somewhat overwhelmed by the two-tonne bulk. But the XC90 climbed the meandering D106 with aplomb, all-wheel drive, all-seasons tyres and all-electro nannies keeping 347lb ft pointing the right way, even as green fauna gradually gave way to fluffy white snowcaps and the temperature plummeted below zero.
We emerged after three-hour stints behind the wheel with barely a complaint. Volvo seats have been supporting bad backs for as long as I can remember, and the multi-adjustable driver’s pew is lavishly comfortable. As previously noted, our woefully impractical Blonde Nappa leather is now a definite shade of Levis Blue, however.
Flaine is a pedestrian resort, so we abandoned the 90 in a weekly car park and glutted on a diet of mountain pursuits, ham and cheese – lots of cheese – for the next week. This is a modernist town, built in the 1960s by Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer and to the casual eye looks like something of a concrete monstrosity compared with prettier picture-postcard resorts like Val d’Isère. But there’s a brutal simplicity, a purity to its design; even the concrete was designed to reflect the local rock and a vast sculpture, La Tête de Femme by Pablo Picasso, stands watchfully over the main causeway.
When we returned a week later, the XC90 looked equally imposing in its £700 Twilight Bronze metallic, a beacon of confident Scandinavian industrial design. It felt like a luxury to climb into our own business-class cabin, choose our own tunes on the excellent Bowers & Wilkins stereo and take the long road home rather than fight through the crowds at Geneva airport.
Is it cheaper to drive than fly? Our costings in the table suggest so, although you will gobble up at least a day, depending on where you live. But frankly, this is not a financial argument; you’ll be emotionally richer by choosing car over plane for your next family holiday. And I’d go Swedish every time.
Cleared for take-off: car vs plane
It cost us £975 to transport a family of four from the Midlands to Flaine in France on an overnight ferry and back on Eurotunnel Flexiplus. Cheaper Channel crossings, avoiding toll roads and going easy on the throttle could’ve reduced that further. We shopped for the cheapest BA flights at child-friendly hours to Geneva and back, plus a Renault Megane hired from Avis. Conclusion? DIY wins by £209.
Logbook: Volvo XC90 D5 AWD Inscription
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 222bhp @ 4250rpm, 361lb ft @ 1750-2500rpm
Transmission Eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
Stats 7.4sec 0-60mph, 137mph, 152g/km CO2
Price £50,185
As tested £66,625
Miles this month 1697
Total 7151
Our mpg 32.3
Official mpg 48.7
Fuel this month £275
Extra costs £975 travel
By Tim Pollard
Month 5 running a Volvo XC90 D5: a matter of choice
Like buses, XC90s can come along in threes, here providing the chance to compare our D5 with a petrol T6 and the T8 hybrid. Had we made the right choice?
The petrol T6 sports 316bhp, 186g/km emissions and rapid acceleration, though four-pot guttural clatter aplenty. No XC90 has more than four cylinders, remember…
This T6 (red car above) had nice leather door cards and a tactile leather steering wheel as part of its R-Design spec. And that trim’s suede/leather sports seats are comfortable and grippier than the armchairs in our Inscription model.
But we have to rule out the XC90 T6 petrol car: its 21mpg displayed economy over mixed, spirited driving was just too thirsty and the petrol engine lacks the class of V6 (and V8) rivals.
What of the Volvo XC90 T8 Twin Engine hybrid? It’s certainly quick with 407bhp combined, its 49g/km of CO2 tempting business users. This example (white car above) had the lovely Orrefors glass gearlever and an airy double-length sunroof and felt even classier than our XC. Shame about the wooden brake feel and jiggly ride, though…
On balance, I still prefer our D5. It’s priced from £46,650 (compared with the £53,350 T6 and T8 from £60,400) and our 30mpg bests their 21mpg and 25mpg. It’s an easy decision, I reckon.
By Tim Pollard
Logbook: Volvo XC90 D5 AWD Inscription
Engine 1969cc 16v turbodiesel 4-cyl, 222bhp @ 4250rpm, 361lb ft @ 1750-2500rpm
Gearbox 8-spd auto, awd
Stats 7.4sec 0-60mph, 137mph, 152g/km CO2
Price £50,185
As tested £66,625
Miles this month 844
Total 5454
Our mpg 30.3
Official mpg 48.7
Fuel £133
Extra costs £0
Month 4 running a Volvo XC90 D5: dust-up at the premium club
At the swanky end of our fleet are two ideas of luxury. Has lux SUV usurped lux saloon? Find out as we pitch our BMW 7-series against our Volvo XC90. Read the full update here.
Logbook: Volvo XC90 D5 AWD Inscription
Engine 1969cc 16v 4cyl turbodiesel, 222bhp @ 4250rpm, 361lb ft @ 1750-2500rpm
Transmission 8-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
Stats 7.4sec 0-60mph, 137mph, 152g/km CO2
Price £50,185
As tested £66,625
Miles this month 1200
Total 4610
Our mpg 29.1
Official mpg 48.7
Fuel this month £194.75
Extra costs £0
Month 3 running a Volvo XC90 D5: no danger of a Sweding ticket
The best seven-seaters trick you into believing fun and fecundity are not mutually exclusive. Does the XC90 drive like a school bus? Or has Volvo pulled off a minor miracle and imbued its range-topper with dynamics polished enough to qualify for a Zuffenhausen birth certificate?
The XC90 falls somewhere in between, striking its own distinctive on-road demeanour. It’s a relaxed car to drive, with buttery refinement. You’re rarely aware of the diddy 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel toiling away under the long bonnet, so long as you mentally adjust your driving style to Relaxed Swedish Gait.
It’s not a quick car by any means, feeling considerably tardier than its 7.4sec 0-60mph time suggests. Yes, 2009kg is still quite porky, but it’s impressively lighter than an equivalent X5, GLE or our old Range Rover Sport. You do, however, have to mash the throttle if heavily laden, rushing uphill or going for a big overtake.
That’s when you miss the multi-cylinder engine options available in rivals. Volvo is pursuing a four-pot-only engine strategy and there’s no getting away from this: it doesn’t sound as good as a 3.0 six-cylinder.
But there the grumbles end. The eight-speed auto slushes gearchanges away to a smooth blur, the steering is relaxed and well judged, the air-suspended ride remarkably cosseting considering the optional 21-inch, eight-spoke alloys worn by KN65 SLZ.
I’m enjoying driving the laid-back XC90 so much that I’m about to take it on a family holiday. I reckon it’ll be cheaper than flying all four of us to the Alps. Stay tuned for the full story.
By Tim Pollard
Month 2 running a Volvo XC90: makeshift TV screens
Click to the next page now if you don’t have children and never transport kids long distances. If you do, chances are you occasionally roll out films on epic journeys. Now, our XC90 – extravagantly equipped as it is with £16k of options – missed out on a pair of the company’s integrated tablet holders.
So I was pleased to see that the classic Volvo rubberised head restraints would let us clip a pair of cheapo Sainsburys DVD players to keep the little guys entertained on a drive to the south coast. Bit messy, but I’m £525 better off.
By Tim Pollard
Month 1 running a Volvo XC90 D5 Inscription: the introduction
I’ve been exchanging goods from the chalk and cheese aisles of the car supermarket this month – bidding farewell to our sporting Audi TTS and settling into life with a more family-focused SUV, the towering presence of the Volvo XC90.
The pair couldn’t be more different. The Audi is all low-slung panache, with the emphasis on kerbside posing and corner carving. The XC90, meanwhile, will slot into kiddy-carrying duties, with its seven seats, huge 451-/1102-/1951-litre boot (depending on how many seats you have in action) and lashings of cabin space thanks to the upright shape.
There are a few similarities. Both use downsized 2.0-litre engines, blown upon by forced induction to keep up with the Joneses. We’ve picked a D5 Volvo, with 222bhp and 361lb ft of torque to keep this 2009kg behemoth going. With prices from £46,250, we judged the diesel to be the sweet spot in the XC90 range: the £60,455 T8 hybrid is pricey and less economical in the real world, the £49,700 T6 petrol a rare-groove purchase in this carbon-crunched age.
Like the Audi, the XC90 has permanent four-wheel drive, to keep us going when the going gets slippery, especially with the standard all-seasons Pirelli Scorpion Verde tyres. The wheels are 21-inch, eight-spoke diamond-cut alloys – a £1450 option. This excess-all-areas vibe percolates throughout; to avoid a long wait for XC90s off the production line, we plumped for a car already specced by Volvo. Hence the price has been swollen by an obscene £16,440.
With a bit of haggling, you could buy a Fiesta ST for that! We have four options packs: Intellisafe Pro for £1500 (radar cruise control, lane-keeping tech, blindspot information and lazy-boy traffic-jam driving); the £575 Winter Pack (heated seats, wheel, washer nozzles and – joy! – windscreen); the bargain £275 Family Pack (Volvo’s classic built-in booster cushion, rear-door sunblinds, powered child locks and a loadcover); and the £900 Seven Seat Comfort option (bundling rear climate control and powered rear headrests).
We’ll be reporting on the wisdom of such spec overload throughout this year and you can read the full spec of our XC90 below. What we can reveal already is that we love the Twilight Bronze paintjob, a metallic costing £700. It’s distinctive, on trend and lends the huge XC90 an understated elegance that suits its lofty stance.
And you really do feel high up once ensconced in the light and airy cabin. The blond soft Nappa leather seats are everything you’d hope for in a Volvo, prioritising comfort and pamper over the TT’s sporting grip. Both cars have elevated the art of cabin design to new highs: I struggle to think of a better exemplar of mainstream automotive design making motorists feel better about life.
But there the similarities end. Stay tuned as we get used to living with a Scandinavian model every day. We’ve a feeling it’ll be a rather happier relationship than with our ex, Volvo’s V60 Plug-in Hybrid.
By Tim Pollard
The spec: those options in full
The spec of our Volvo was chosen by Volvo – and swells the price by £16,440! That lump sum comprises four options ‘bundles’:
- Intellisafe Pro (£1500) Adaptive Cruise Control, Queue Assist, Lane Keeping Aid, Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) with Cross Traffic Alert (CTA)
- Winter Pack (£575) Heated front seats, heated steering wheel, heated washer nozzles, heated front windscreen
- Family Pack (£275) Integrated two-stage booster cushion for centre rear seat, powered child locks on the rear doors, boot netting, built-in rear sun blinds
- Seven Seat Comfort (£900) Four-zone electronic climate control including chilled glovebox, third-row air-conditioning, power-folding second row headrests
With more individual options as below:
- Retractable towbar We have the £995 electric 13-pin plug towbar that drops down automatically. A neat solution
- Four Corner Electronic Air Suspension A must-have for XC90s: it’s a punchy £2150, but makes the ride so much more bearable
- Inscription trim Our trim adds digital dials, leather seats and dash, 20in alloys, extra chrome detailing and roof rails
- Mega sound system Our Sensus Connect infotainment system comes with Bowers & Wilkins upgrade… for £3000!
- Laminated side windows £450 to have quieter acoustics
- Metallic Paint Sadly a compulsory upgrade these days on most cars. Costs £700
- Drive mode settings with adjustable steering force Volvo’s adaptive chassis settings, £395
- Spare wheel and jack Pretty outrageous you have to stump up £150 for a spare
- Apple CarPlay with 230v/150W three-pin plug The latest in connectivity costs £300
- Tinted rear windows For that mafia look – should keep kids cool, too, for £400
- 21-inch eight-spoke diamond cut alloys A hefty £1450 for big rims and 275/40 tyres
- Auxiliary fuel-fired heater Excited about this one – toasty morning starts for £1270
- Power adjustable front seat side support Extra adjustability on the front seats, £200
- Power front cushion extensions Yes – £120 for even more adjustability…
- Nappa soft leather perforated and ventilated Upholstery Smarter, breathing leather for £700
- Rear park assist camera £400 to avoid any car park dings
- Illuminated tailgate scuff plate Ultimate vanity unit for £400
- Rear bumper protection £110 to make sure Fido doesn’t scratch your boot
Phew. What a lot of options! We’ll be assessing their worth over the next half year.
Logbook: Volvo XC90 D5 AWD Inscription
Engine: 1969cc 16v 4cyl turbodiesel, 222bhp @ 4250rpm, 361lb ft @ 1750-2500rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
Stats: 7.4sec 0-60mph, 137mph, 152g/km CO2
Price: £50,185
As tested: £66,625
Miles this month: 325
Total miles: 1850
Our mpg: 29.3
Official mpg: 48.7
Fuel this month: £40.03
Extra costs: £0
