Buying & Owning
Ian Cushway searches out new and used parts prices
Stylish, safe and practical, the classy seven-seater second-generation XC90 is finally affordable now, too.
The big and chunky first-gen XC90 which landed in 2002 was good and set a new benchmark for subtly posh SUVs at the time – but the model that replaced it 15 years later was much better. Not least because it was sat on Volvo’s spanking new Scaleable Product Architecture platform which made it bigger and more rigid, yet lighter and more refined at the same time.
Like its predecessor, and what’s attracted buyers to Volvo since the Sixties, it was festooned with hi-tech safety features. Indeed, the Swedish firm had anticipated just about every road hazard imaginable when putting it together, including automatic braking if you were about to cut in front of a car while turning and even semiautonomous driving in traffic.
Initially, engines included the Drive-E 2.0-litre units fuelled by diesel (D5) or petrol (T6 and T8) using a heady mix of turbocharging, hybridisation and supercharging to provide various power/ economy options. A PowerPulse diesel engine was added to the D5 range a year after launch – the engine uses a shot of compressed air to help spool up the smaller turbocharger – and a less powerful 246bhp T5 joined the petrol car options in 2018. Controversially perhaps, they were all four-cylinder units and there was no V8 like in the first-gen XC90.
The flagship plug-in hybrid T8 used all three to provide scintillating performance married with 49g/km emissions, outstanding fuel economy and a battery-only range of 20 miles, thereby ticking just about every box in the process.
Drive came via an eight-speed Geartronic ‘manumatic’ gearbox which everyone seems to enjoy using.
The car was given a mild makeover in 2019 when it got even more safety tech, as well as a new grille, new alloys and a wider range of colour schemes. At the same time, a new 231bhp B5 diesel engine replaced one in the D5 and confusingly you could now get a B5P petrol engine as well.
All powerplants felt quick and refined – the diesels in particular offering plenty of low-rev pull for ease of use and effortless motorway performance. Handling was good, too, though notably the XC90 had a little more body lean than more sportier luxury SUV offerings like the BMW X5 and Porsche Cayenne. It was supremely nice inside. The driving position and all-round visibility is great, and the feel of the fixtures and fittings remind you that you’re driving a product of extreme quality. And as you’d expect, space is plentiful with all manner of seating options; there’s even a sensible amount of legroom in the rearmost row of seats, as well as a particularly generous amount of bootspace in five-seat mode.
Needless to say, this level of Swedish sophistication didn’t come cheap, with even the
