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| 2007 Volvo Xc90 Review | |||
| Whether you're about to spend $40K on a brand new car, or half that on a used car, it is always important to learn as much as you can about the used car. Read these car reviews to learn about all aspects of the vehicle. Each of the usedcar reviews cover interior and exterior features, options, road tests, and more. | |||
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Introduction
| Road Test
| Inside & Out
| Other Thoughts
| Last Word
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| Inside & Out | |||
If the XC70 was intended as SUV replacement therapy, the XC90 is for folks who just have to get high. In fact, it gets you higher by a full foot as the rooflines rises from 57.7 to 61.5 to 70.2 inches (V70, XC70, XC90) while ground clearance steps up from 5.3 through 8.2 to arrive at this tippy 8.9. The XC90 also comes out ahead in length, width and wheelbase, though the differences are less dramatic.The inside mirrors the outside in that the family resemblance is there, yet few pieces are actually shared. The XC90 gets its own seats, steering wheel, foot-operated parking brake, stereo, climate system, vents, and dials. Despite all the trouble, Volvo couldn't stop the XC90's interior from looking like all the others: pretty damn cool. The doors move in hard notches, most of the controls press stiffly (a few too stiff, and a few quite soft), the turn signal always blinks thrice (new feature), and despite the cream coloring and some bogus wood, the air of businesslike black dominates. It's a European car, all right. Volvo's interiors aren't arranged or labeled exactly like anyone else's, but all the controls still manage to make sense (I said European, not German). The automatic dual-zone climate control system works refreshingly like a manual system, and in this age of impending hands-free cell phone laws, it's puzzling that no one has copied Volvo's phone-style keypad layout for the stereo, whose ten preset buttons are just great. The manual tuning could be less fussy, but the sound is pretty powerful and deep through the eight standard speakers (if just a tiny bit muddled), and Volvo's finally catching up with the world by enabling playback of MP3 CDs and installing iPod-friendly Auxiliary ports in its whole 2007 fleet. The XC90 even has that Sweden-exclusive feature of a rear fog light, for times when blinding the people in front of you just won't suffice. Storage compartments, while not huge, are numerous and well-conceived: the captain's chairs feature kangaroo pouches in front and two-tiered pockets on their backsides; the center console weirdly opens 180 degrees. The seats are likewise numerous and well-conceived, with fine support and long-term comfort, nice leather (mixed with not-so-nice vinyl lining the edges and sides) and for the driver, an infinitely adjustable steering wheel plus 3-position memory. The leather steering wheel feels, er, dehydrated… but in a good way! The picture is nearly as optimistic for second-row passengers, who sit on a chair-height bench with decent legroom and plenty of scooped out stomping room under the front seats. Not until the third row (optional) does the most voluminous of Volvos fail, due to legroom tight enough to push any adult's limbs inward in a pelvis-crushing fashion. Kids will survive with all organs intact, but suffer from a myopic worldview from the tall wall formed by the second row bench. But wait: that bench is split 40/20/40, so just fold down the "20" (in times of, say, exactly six passengers) and you can spell relief. When upright, that middle seat also slides forward to ease parent-infant interaction. Also appreciated are collapsible head restraints on both back rows to ease folding and a flat floor once done. The third-row's folding method is something new: its bottom cushion disappears backward under the rearmost part of the floor. The reward for these careful solutions is a fantastic 93.2 cubic feet of space (with 6 of the 7 seats down), and filling it is made easier by the mini-tailgate. The only possible footnote in the comfort picture (aside from those gypped juniors in row three) is the head restraints, which stand so far forward that no one will ever substitute the slang "head rests" again. At least the sacrifice of never relaxing one's head is not without purpose: in a rear-end crash, those missing extra inches of slack could make all the difference. Volvo's other measures to save your neck, literally and otherwise, are thankfully free. More whiplash protection is found in the safety system called, surely enough, WHIPS, which lets the backrests move back with you to absorb some crash energy. The front airbags are both dual-stage and dual-threshold, and the war on slack continues by making pretensioners standard on every seatbelt in the house, plus force limiters on the fronts. Finally, what would WHIPS be without SIPS (Side-Impact Protection System, best summed up as careful utilization of the body structure to dissipate energy), much less ROPS (RollOver Protection System: curtain airbags for everyone), or pillars and a roof made from Boron steel? Amidst all this talk of WHIPS and SIPS and ROPS, rear side-impact airbags are notably AWOL. Still, the NHTSA's crash test awarded 5 stars to both rows in a side-impact anyway, as well as to the driver from the front. The passenger's front crash only maxed out at 4 stars, as did the Rollover score (where no SUV has scored 5), but the other big car mangling institute, the IIHS, awarded the XC90 a "Good" on every detail its front-offset crash test. So mission accomplished, right? |
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