I’ve recently driven the updated Volvo XC90, long being a favourite of mine, mainly due to the excellent build quality, safety standards & the quality of the interior materials used. The XC 90 does not really have that much of a visual change, unless you add in the changes to the grilles over the spec levels. And the Volvo can be specced as a six or 7-seater. We had the six seater, which felt distinctly odd indeed. The car we had, had 20 inch wheels and air suspension, so drive quality was excellent.
Interior.
The interior of the Volvo XC 90 is beautiful, soft touch materials abound, and proper leather with fancy stitching as well. There is little visible plastics in the cabin and everything seems premium, and very well set out as well. The interior is very spacious and you have space between the two rear seats for a cooler or other item.Not the most practical use of space in my opinion, and I prefer a proper 7-seater.
Boot space is prolific with 1856 litres in fold down mode, and 312 litres without. And then we have the Volvo On Call which, if you press the On Call button above the rear-view mirror, you can ask for anything from directions to emergency assistance. It has a SA based The system can also detect if you’ve been in an accident and automatically call emergency services for you.
I found this to be extremely useful indeed. As with many premium models, there is a downloadable smartphone app that allows you to remotely connect to the car’s functions, such as remote start, flash the headlights and sound the hooter, so you can find your car in a parking lot and send navigation directly from your phone to the car.
Engine
The Volvo XC 90 D5 has a 2.0 L single-turbo diesel engine that pushes out 173kw & 480 Nm of torque. Surprisingly I found that I needed to be in dynamic mode mostly, as there was excessive turbo-lag. It has an 8-speed auto transmission which was velvet like, but the engine did sound a little guttural. Fuel consumption is claimed at 5.7 L/100 km. When you had it in dynamic mode and you put down a heavy foot, it got going pretty rapidly.
The Volvo is known as a safety conscious vehicle, and it comes with a full array of safety features, mentioned in our previous article.
Prices.
D5 AWD R-Design R1 139 100.00
The facelifted Volvo XC90 is sold in South Africa with a 5 year / 100 000km warranty and maintenance plan (Volvo Plan), 5 years/ unlimited mileage Roadside Assistance, as well as DataDot application. We enjoyed the updated Volvo, especially the new tech, solid and premium build quality.