Rugged wagon combines comfort and practicality
Overview Family-friendly luxury wagon crossover Pros Very comfortable ride, premium interior, excellent cargo space, great safety Cons Price can get steep, lacklustre four-banger in base car Value for money Average What would I change? Offer AWD in base model
Think of the 2015 Volvo XC70 as a wagon on steroids. It is jacked up 8.3 inches off the ground, is taller than a regular wagon at 1,603 millimetres, and boasts an off-road-ready appearance that’s both rugged and handsome. The tall wagon also has the cargo space and available all-wheel-drive of a crossover but offers the lower sitting position and ease-of-handling found in a car.
The question is, does this wagon crossover make sense to buyers?
As the cross-country version of Volvo’s V70 station wagon, the XC70 is essentially the Swedish automaker’s answer to the car-based crossover we North Americans love so much. In 2011, Volvo went all-in with the XC70 in North America as it stopped selling the V70 wagon here due to flagging sales. In Canada, sales of the mid-sized five-seater XC70 have been steadily declining the past few years, confirming that wagons, be they in crossover guise or not, are still very much a niche player in North America.
Which is unfortunate, as the XC70 is a very comfortable and practical luxury alternative to traditional cute-utes.
Our tester was the frontwheel-drive T5 Premier Plus version (with an as-tested price of $53,000 before freight and taxes), which comes with a turbocharged 2.0-litre fourcylinder engine. The DriveE powertrain produces 240 horsepower and 258 poundfeet of torque, and has good fuel economy ratings of 9.8 litres per 100 km in the city and 7.6 L/100 km on the highway. I managed a decent 9.0 L of premium fuel per 100 km over 323 km of mixed driving.
Right off the bat, I’d say s hell i ng out more than $50,000 for a front-wheeldrive crossover is far too much, even with the bevy of options that come in this higher trim. Volvo really should make AWD available for the XC70 at all levels to truly back up the car’s rugged styling and justify the premium pricing. As it stands, AWD is only available in the T6 version (starting at $47,900), which comes with a twin-turbocharged 3.0 L, six-cylinder plant that makes a very robust 300 hp and 325 lb.-ft. of torque.
On the styling front, the XC70 does retain some of the boxy look of Volvo wagons of old. But this third-generation benefits from a nice makeover that includes a refreshed grille, handsome daytime running LEDs, sleeker lines, and an overall muscular appearance that fits with the car’s multi-usage appeal.
On the road, the four-banger is a fairly quiet and capable mill, but it needs a firm prod of the pedal to get going and feels a tad underpowered for such a heavy car (the base model weighs in at 1,720 kg). Still, getting up to highway speeds is surprisingly quick, with a zero to 100 km/h time of 7.4 seconds in the 2.0L version. It’s a rather smooth affair as well, thanks to the car’s quick-shifting eightspeed Geartronic automatic transmission. The car also benefits from a well-planted comportment; it’s a lot more car-like in this respect and not so top-heavy like a traditional SUV. There is, however, some noticeable body roll.
Where the XC70 excels, however, is in the comfort department. Everything about the XC70 feels solidly built, and the interior of the cabin cossets passengers in a nearly soundproof cocoon. There’s very little road noise or harshness, engine noise is subdued from the inside, and the soft suspension readily absorbs bumps and potholes.
Luxurious amenities only add to the comfort factor in the interior, which can be best described as “subdued Scandinavian elegance meets cutting-edge”. The FWD T5 version starts at $42,100, and comes well-equipped with features like automatic engine stop-start, Bluetooth streaming, and a seven-inch colour display. Moving up the trim level, however, makes the car feel truly premium. My Premier Plus tester came with the standard options but included soft leather seats, a sunroof, classy dark walnut wood inlays, and a really spiffy adaptive digital instrument cluster. The latter is a TFT display you can set to three themes (elegance, eco and performance), which will tailor the information behind the steering wheel to your preferred style.
But it’s pretty easy to price yourself out in the higher trims, especially when you start adding some of the standalone options like blind spot monitoring ($800) and packages like-technology ($1,500), which features Volvo’s vaunted adaptive cruise control. Volvo likes to appeal to buyers looking for a cost-efficient alternative to more premium SUV-like wagons like Audi’s A4 Allroad, but that value proposition begins to wane when you start adding up the options, especially in the front-wheeldrive model. By comparison, the Allroad starts at $46,600, but comes with quattro AWD as standard.
Practically speaking, the XC70 can compete with the best crossovers in the hauling department. With the 40/20/40 rear seats up, there is a very usable 942 litres of cargo space in the back. Fold them down and you open up a cavernous 2,042L of space. Rear seat legroom is also very generous.
For those who can get past their prejudice toward anything that looks like a wagon, the Volvo XC70 offers a very safe, practical and comfortable ride that’s fit for Canada, with the caveat being you opt for the more winter-ready and value-friendly AWD T6 model. As a premium niche vehicle, it’s certainly a car that stands out in a crowded segment.