Volvo XC60 review: the stunning Swedish SUV with only itself to beat

[Mr.TaLaL]

 

volvo’s XC60 mid-sized SUV first broke cover as a concept in Detroit in January 2007. Apart from some wacky seats and long sunroof, it wasn’t much different from the production XC60 which debuted the following year at Geneva. So much so, that we teased Steve Mattin, then Volvo’s design head, that the concept looked like something he’d knocked up a few months after he’d completed the production car.

The XC60’s stacked bonnet, [CENSORED]ceous and spacious cabin, big wheels and the unashamed targeting of wealthy American markets hit the spot, however. It’s one of the most successful cars to have used Ford’s EUCD platform, which also underpinned Ford’s Galaxy and S-Max, Land Rover’s Freelander and Discovery Sport, Volvo’s V60 and V70 and the Range Rover Evoque.

 

It’s also, Volvo claims, the bestseller in its class and those volumes helped Volvo through the mid-noughties dog days of lacklustre sales that struggled to exceed 450,000 worldwide (some 150,000 short of its then-owner Ford’s ambitious target), until its purchase by Geely Automobile in 2009/2010.

Last year Volvo sales were a record 534,332 and while the old XC60 performed well as usual, it was the brand-new cars, the XC90 and V70 - both based Volvo’s new chassis platform - which pulled up the trees. This £6.27 billion scheme, known as Scaleable Platform Architecture (SPA), uses the same basic structure, which is compact and light as it only has to accommodate four-cylinder engines mounted transversely.
 

Now it’s the turn of the XC60 to be slotted on an SPA platform and Volvo is expecting great things when it goes on sale in the UK this July priced from £37,205, though the only UK-bound car on the launch was the top turbodiesel D5 Power Plus model in Inscription Pro trim, which costs £48,405. The most po[CENSORED]r UK model is likely to be the 187bhp/295lb ft D4 diesel in R-Design trim, which starts at £39,705.

 

While the new car is recognisably an XC60, it’s also recognisably new, looking tauter around the wheels, with a lower and wider stance and meaner-looking headlights. Yes, it’s an SUV, but it’s a good looking one.

 

The cabin feels more like a work of art; perhaps with a little too much detail in places, although that sounds a bit like Emperor Joseph II’s infamous complaint that Mozart’s music “has too many notes”.   Upright and closer to the driver than before, the facia has an awesome amount of detail: with layers of chrome, wood, leather, stitching, more chrome, more stitching and more leather - it’s exhausting, but what a performance.

The centre console, lifted from the larger XC90, has new control software, which is less intuitive than the old and takes more learning, and for what was billed as the button-less dash, there are still a lot of buttons.

 

The seats are comfortable, cosseting and reasonably supportive - it’s a Volvo, what did you expect? The steering is manually adjustable for reach and rake and the seat height is adjustable, too, so finding a decent driving position shouldn’t be a problem. There’s space enough for three adults across the back seat and, despite the new XC60 being lower than the old model, headroom to spare (just).

With a hidden cubby hole under the floor, the 505-litre boot feels high off the ground, so tugging loads in there isn’t for the faint-hearted and old dogs might find it a bit of a struggle, but there’s still plenty of space and the seats all fold forward to make an almost flat load floor.

 

Chief designer Thomas Ingenlath said: “We wanted to address the feeling that you were transporting a lot of air when you were driving on your own.”

 

They’ve certainly managed that and as well as feeling more intimate and classy, the new XC60 feels less like a van than the old, even if they have pinched a bit off the interior to make it happen.

The safety systems are mainly borrowed from the XC90, most notable being run-off road mitigation which helps prevent the same by applying torque to the steering wheel to encourage the driver to steer back into the lane, and should an off-road excursion be inevitable, tightening the belts and preparing the safety systems for impact.

 

There’s also a new system to help steer the car back into its lane if it detects an oncoming vehicle (which is a bit alarming for us do-or-die overtakers), and a city braking system that also helps to steer away from the pedestrian/cyclist/moose in the way.  

Since all big Volvos share the same four-cylinder, 2.0-litre engine configuration, they have to bolt stuff to those engines to make them quicker. In the case of the top model turbodiesel, it’s an ingenious engine-driven compressor, which charges up a cylinder of air that is pumped into the turbo housing to spin up the blades at low revs and reduce turbo lag.

It works pretty well and the engine is refined and quiet, although it does growl a bit at low revs. On paper its rapid, too, with a 137mph top speed and 0-62mph in 7.2sec, although this is a big car weighing 1.85 tonnes and the throttle has a very aggressive initial action, which leaves you wanting if you mash it to the bulkhead. Fortunately the Aisin eight-speed transmission does a fine job of metering out the power, only occasionally feeling lost for a ratio.

 

The top gear feels pretty long, with 70mph showing with just 1,800rpm on the revcounter. The Barcelona-based launch provided some twisting mountain roads, which meant the XC60 was down through the gears quite a lot, but despite that we managed 33.2mpg against an official EU Combined economy of 51.4mpg.

 

Wishbone front and multi-link rear suspension was augmented with £1,500’s worth of optional rear air springs and adaptive damping on the test car - standard springing is via a composite transverse leaf spring.

With a four-position dynamic control, Comfort mode is exactly that, but without much float, just a lovely breathing sensation on undulating roads. Dynamic stiffens everything with greater accuracy, but the ride doesn’t suffer horribly, although the 20-inch low-profile tyres which are standard on the Inscription Pro spec are likely to be less suited to UK roads than the R-Design’s 19-inch wheels and tyres.

 

The electronically assisted steering isn’t as good as that in the XC90, especially around the straight ahead position, where it feels unresponsive.

Optional Pilot Assist, a limited self-driving system combining smart cruise control and automatic lane keeping, comes as part of the £1,500 Intellisafe Pro package. Volvo bravely allows the entire system to be controlled via one steering-wheel thumb switch cluster, which toggles between functions. That’s a confusing stretch even for experienced road testers and it was interesting that Karl-Johan Ekman, the president of this vehicle line, wouldn’t be drawn on whether this was the interface Volvo would take forward to further autonomous systems.

 

Like all the rival systems, this level of self-driving is only partially successful since you always have to hold the steering wheel and are in charge of and responsible for the vehicle at all times. I liked the beep that warned you to keep hold of the wheel, but like its rivals, the system will disengage without a sound if it encounters unfamiliar road conditions.

 

Malin Ekholm, senior director at Volvo’s Safety Centre, said: “We don’t want drivers waiting for the beep,” although she agrees that the protocols for controlling further autonomy will need more work, especially as Volvo is talking about a two-minute hand back to the driver from full autonomous systems.

So it’s comfy, swift, safe, good looking and, within reason, economical. It sells into one of the UK’S fastest growing market sectors, in which it’s already one of the class leaders. Could you remind me exactly why the new XC60 isn’t going to be a success?


 

TESTED 2.0-litre turbodiesel, eight-speed automatic gearbox, four-wheel drive

PRICE/ON SALE from £37,205 (£48,405 as tested)/July

POWER/TORQUE 232bhp @ 4,000rpm, 354lb ft @ 1,750rpm

TOP SPEED 137mph

ACCELERATION 0-62mph in 7.2sec

FUEL ECONOMY 51.4mpg (EU Combined). On test 33.2mpg

CO2 EMISSIONS 144g/km  

VED BAND (131 - 150g/km) £200 first year, then £140

VERDICT A confident and assured redesign on Volvo’s new chassis architecture. Beautiful cabin (in high specs) and supremely comfortable. The chassis prioritises comfort, but it’s not a dynamic disaster and the diesel is growly, but powerful. The steering still needs work, however, and not all the latest updates to Volvo’s control software are a success.

TELEGRAPH RATING Four stars out of five