VOLVO KNOWS that not all drivers in need of a large family car want a big SUV. For the past 20 years, it has offered a large, four-wheel drive estate car with sufficient ground clearance to make it into a music festival campsite, and enough space onboard for five people, their tents, luggage and a ukulele or two.
The new V90 Cross Country is the latest incarnation and continues that line of go-anywhere – well, almost anywhere – estate cars that are more affordable than a large, luxury SUV. Not to mention more car-like to drive, easier for loading in dogs, antiques, or whatever else takes your fancy.
There’s also the personal matter of taste. In the minds of some drivers, big SUVs are statements of aggression, built to dominate the road, whereas an estate car could be considered a nondescript workhorse, as neutral as Switzerland.
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Is the V90 Cross Country a practical family car for those who only need five seats, though?
The price gets it off to a promising start. The most affordable V90 Cross Country is £40,350, for a D4 diesel model (meaning it costs £450 a year in road tax, from the second to sixth year of ownership). An XC90 leaves precious little change from £50,000, starting from £48,655 for the D5 diesel. A D5 V90 Cross Country, reviewed here, costs from £44,150.
However, at the business end of a family car – namely, the boot – the V90 Cross Country is at a considerable disadvantage to the XC90. It has a 560-litre boot, whereas the big SUV boasts 775 litres; fold all the seats down and load it to the gunnels and you get 1,526 litres in the estate, which is more than 400 litres less than the SUV.
You might have noticed from the pictures that the V90 Cross Country is one of the more handsome estate cars on the road. With its Scandi-chic style, it looks like a four-wheeled extra from an episode of The Bridge or Trapped.
But your Labrador won’t care one bit for such styling nuances when its face is pressed against the heavily sloped rear window, even if the load sill is nice and low. And there’s no cargo net integrated within the luggage cover.
A Mercedes E-class estate is considerably more accommodating, holding 640-litres. Happily, the Volvo’s seats fold flat at the touch of a button located in the boot, and the powered tailgate doesn’t open begrudgingly, like some; in fact, you’ll need to step clear sharpish if you’re not to get clocked on the chin.
Volvo fitted a Family Pack to our test car. For £450, this provides booster cushions that spring up out of the normal seats, child locks and a pair of sun blinds. It doesn’t seem like good value for money, given you could buy a pair of Isofix high-backed seats, with improved side-impact protection, and sun blinds for considerably less. And manually setting child locks is no hardship.
You could happily spend a couple of days at the wheel, with the family aboard, driving to the South of France or foot of Italy, without feeling fatigued
The rear seat space is generous, and the seats are comfortable on long journeys. Volvo includes air vents for back seat passengers in the door pillars, and the rear headrests can be lowered at the touch of a button on the dashboard.
In the front, this is one of the classiest interiors of any family car. Volvo is on a roll right now – only Mercedes is making nicer cabins.
The seats and driving position are comfortable. The touchscreen interface eventually becomes intuitive. And the materials used throughout – from the supple Nappa leather to the diamond-cut finish of controls for the engine start button and driving modes – are straight out of a interiors glossy magazine.
You could happily spend a couple of days at the wheel, with the family aboard, driving to the South of France or foot of Italy, for the summer holiday, without feeling fatigued.
That’s not just because the interior is so calming. The driving experience is soothing, too. Volvo’s engineers didn’t want the V90 Cross Country to be sporty, like a BMW, they wanted it to be relaxing. And it is.
So forget about the ‘High Performance’ driving mode, because it’s an oxymoron. Nothing will excite the driver if they floor the accelerator; this car is all about making calm, considered progress.
The D5, four-cylinder diesel engine provides acceptable performance (0-62mph in 7.5 seconds) and fuel economy (53mpg), and the eight-speed automatic gearbox shifts cogs quickly enough. The optional air suspension (£1500) is probably not worth paying for, but it was hard to tell, as Volvo had also fitted the optional, 19 inch allow wheels to our test car, which affected the ride comfort.
On the road, the four-wheel drive system is only likely to make its benefits felt if towing. The V90 Cross Country D5 can haul up to 750kg of unbraked trailer weight, or up to 2,500kg using a braked trailer.
Its four-wheel drive system uses a smart clutch system that allows it to operate in two- or four-wheel drive, helping save fuel in day-to-day driving conditions, or diverting power to the wheels with the most grip when venturing off the beaten track. Wisely, it is always engaged from a standstill, to help prevent wheelspin.
The Cross Country rides 65mm higher than a regular Volvo V90, and it comes with a protective skid plate under the engine and features such as hill descent control. We didn’t get to put it to the test off-road, however.
It may not be as accommodating as some rival estate cars, or indeed the XC90 SUV, but the V90 Cross Country has enough going for it to ensure that Volvo’s adventure-seeking estate car is likely to remain popular for another 20 years.
The post Volvo V90 Cross Country review (2017-on) appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.
source https://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/volvo-v90-cross-country-review-2017/
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