The Volvo V90 moves with you
Shaw notes that Cross Country buyers actually DO all the things that SUV ads talk about, but which SUV buyers seldom actually do.
Jim Nichols, tech and product communications manager for Volvo Cars USA, adds that this demographic is among the richest within Volvo’s family. He says that these customers are in fact actually doing the things you see in SUV ads, and they are also preparing to do them — buying stuff at the outfitters stores, etc.
Volvo has long been the Wagonmaster, but it seems Americans won’t buy wagons unless they look like SUVs. The basic but handsome V90 will not even be stocked by Stateside Volvo dealers; it will be special-order only down here, although it will grace showroom floors in Canada.
Thomas Ingenlath, the ex-Audi senior vice-president for design at Volvo, adds that the changes from the “city” V90 to the “country-fied” V90 Cross Country are therefore all about making the vehicle more capable in the rough going.
Hence, the V90 Cross Country gets jacked up by 60 millimetres, thanks to suspension adjustments and taller tires, which also combine to provide additional ground clearance.
It gets larger side-view mirrors for a beefier look, the obligatory-for-an-SUV fender flares and additional protection under the front bumper to help avoid expensive powertrain damage, should you go perhaps a bit too far off-road.
It would seem Volvo expects V90 Cross Country buyers to be a conservative lot when it comes to colour. It’s not quite “any colour you want as long as it’s black,” but it seems to be various shades of grey (apologies to E.L. James) with a couple of whites, browns and blues tossed in.
With some colours, the otherwise grey-painted fender flares can optionally be made monochromatic — that is to say, painted body colour.
Mechanically, you are limited at the moment anyway to one choice — the 316 horsepower turbocharged and supercharged 2.0-litre, four-cylinder engine, driving all four wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox.
This is sufficient to launch the big car from rest to 100 kilometres/hour in a respectable 6.3 seconds, the supercharger filling in the gaps in lowspeed torque production that a turbocharger inevitably leaves.
The transmission has no paddle shifters, which seems a bit odd. Shift quality can be a bit lazy at times and manual override would be useful.
Four drive modes — Eco, Comfort, Dynamic and Off-Road — tailor various driving characteristics to suit.
A fifth mode — Individual — allows you to select from various options to your preferences.
The car is already set up for a comfortable ride, with taller-than-usual tires giving more impact cushiness. I found Dynamic the most useful, but it is up to you.
Inside, it’s pretty much S90/XC90, apart from some unique trim materials, and there isn’t a whole lot wrong with that. Fabulous seats, lots of room, all the comfort for which Volvo is famous.
All the modern conveniences are on hand, including heated front seats (heated rears are optional), Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability, plus blind-spot and lane-departure warning systems.
There is also Volvo’s ridiculous semi-autonomous Pilot Assist selfdriving system, which sometimes can drive the car by itself for a short time until it can’t or just won’t, at which point it just shuts itself off with no apparent warning.
I’m stunned that a company with such a strong and stellar safety record as Volvo allows this nonsense in their cars. Simply avoid it the way I avoid clichés — like the plague. You can’t buy the car without it, but you don’t ever have to switch it on. Please don’t.
The single-touchscreen-does-it-all system for minor controls apparently gets easier to use with more time; more time as it happens than we had booting the car around Phoenix and environs for a full day, although some of the functions became simpler to use with even our limited time in the car.
Our route took us initially along well-paved highways where the vehicle was quiet, calm, composed, comfortable. Our first stop was at Lake Pleasant Regional Park, about 55 km north and slightly west of the city where we got some of these neat pics.
Within the park, we actually managed to climb up a slope which we think a Land Rover might have found daunting.
Sure, there is always a hill somewhere that any vehicle cannot make. But there is no hill which you could reasonably expect — heck, even unreasonably expect — this vehicle to tackle that it cannot handle.
Then we headed along what is definitely not the highway from Lake Pleasant to Wickenburg. Parts of this road are, quite frankly, not finished, and it provided the V90 Cross Country a chance to go — well, “cross country,” fording several streams, picking our way through some nonroad bits, dodging fallen cacti. Hence, more cool pics. And the V90 Cross Country ate it all up and spat it out like it was no big deal.
It remains to be seen whether Volvo’s view of its customers is accurate. The V90 Cross Country makes so much more sense than the taller heavier XC90, yet that vehicle is the company’s bestseller.
The V90 Cross Country is fractionally smaller inside but still has all the space anyone could possibly want. It is quite a chunk lighter so will give better performance and get better fuel economy, and is generally a nicer car to drive.
It probably has a better shot at decent sales in Canada than in those Excited States of America.
On the other hand, its overall capabilities might just help at least some Americans see the light about more intelligent vehicles.