VOLVO XC60 Review

The Four-C continuous suspension control system is clearly a low-budget substitute for a pneumatic suspension system but it really does its job. Its sensors monitor each wheel movement 500 times per second and act accordingly, giving you a compromise between Roll Royce like wafting in “Comfort” mode and somewhat sporty (for an SUV) stance in “Advanced” mode, with the “Sport” setting in the middle.

The steering system force feedback also has three settings, that can be changed from the car's on-board menu, but the system can also change itself depending on the speed being achieved by the car. Probably following a weird Swedish legacy, the steering is still over-maneuverable even on its hardest force setting, which is very helpful in the city but not so cool on the open road or if you expect more feedback from the road in general.

The seats are adequately comfortable, the driver's being eight-way electrically adjustable with three different memory settings. Just like in its station wagon-based sibling, the front passenger seat is manually controlled for some bizarre reason, transforming the electrical adjustment in just a tick on the options list.

The overall quality of the interior of our test car was top notch, with comfy leather seats that had some interesting colors and funky stitching. The audio system wasn't Volvo's best, the premium Dynaudio, but the “High Performance” system, which was more than accurate in reproducing anything from Cypress Hill to Audioslave.

It was also equipped with a six CD-changer, steering wheel controls, both USB and iPod auxiliary sockets and a control console for the rear seats. By being a not very expensive feature, the option of having different left/right volume and playing controls in the rear can take a lot from your mind, a pair of easily bored brats in the back seat coming to mind.

Again, the 2.4 liter diesel engine isn't our favorite piece of technology from Volvo since it has so many downsides, the main one residing in the power it lacks and the turbocharger lag it develops up to around 2000 rpm.

Relying on only 185 hp and 400 Nm (295 lb ft) of torque to move the amount of Swedish steel it carries gives it a 9.9 second time from naught to 100 km/h (62 mph) and a top speed of 200 km/h (124 mph), which doesn't quite make it the fastest thing on four wheels.

The turbo lag wouldn't be so intruding if it wasn't for the sport-mode-less six speed automatic transmission, which sometimes amplifies the rubber band effect. Not there's anything truly wrong with the gearbox, but it isn't exactly a sporty example of an automatic. Hey, at least it has a plus/minus manual mode.

Like we've said before, the Four C shock absorbing control system is somewhat of a poor substitute for a true pneumatic suspension. Still, it does its job fairly well and has an automatic ride height control feature also.

Apart from the horrendous turbocharger and transmission lag we encountered or from the not-exactly-high-tech suspension, the three-way steering wheel hardness feedback could only be set from really soft to just a little harder. Which kind of makes the whole hardness setting process almost redundant.

On the good side, the adaptive cruise control has much more features than your regular speed regulator, but we'll talk more about what exactly these do in the safety chapter of our Volvo XC60 test drive.

Part of Volvo's new arsenal of idiot-proof safety gadgets, the collision alert system also made its way into the XC60. Unlike the version we found in the XC70, this one actually has a automatic braking feature, but we didn't dare test it since it supposed to work only in impending crashes and just to minimize the damages, not prevent them completely.

Also integrated in the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), the collision alert system uses the aforementioned system's radar sensor and a digital camera to monitor the road ahead up to 150 meters and inform the driver of any impending crash. After sensing that you're about to smash into the guy in front of you, depending on the severity of the situation it lights up a different number of red LEDs on the Head Up Display system, pre-activates the brakes and starts that annoying “Beeep!” sound.

If the collision is still en route, the system will actually make the car brake by itself but only in the last possible moment, so that you can minimize the damage did by the unavoidable accident. We liked the fact that the annoying beep happens a bit less “every freaking second!” and more “casual, just so it reminds you it's there to help”.

Other than this and the City Safety system, we can find the usual array of what Volvo like to call gadgets but are actually just means to keep you or the occupants out of certain dangerous situations. For example, a dangerous situation is when you're new to parenting and forget the child seats at home when taking your kid to kindergarden. Well, that's OK cause the XC60 has integrated child-seats that fold out the rear seat.

If you have two underage occupants in the rear seat they can be kept under control with a few horror stories by night or some grindcore music by day via the two rear headset ports with individual volume knobs.

Just like in the rest of the modern XC line of crossovers, the Adaptive Cruise Control system has a “follow that car” function. It only requires you to set the maximum speed and the minimum distance to the car in the front on the highway and the system will make your car follow it until you or the fuel capacity decide otherwise.

The Active Bi-Xenon Lights are just about what all the cool kids are using now, and by “cool kids” we mean the German premium trio and the Japanese a la Lexus, Acura and Infiniti. At speeds of over 65 km/h (40 mph), the headlights automatically sway in the direction of moving, which is both a safety gadget and a nice feature to brag with your friends about.

If we would take whatever Volvo marketing people are throwing at us, the XC60 should be the safest Volvo ever built. It should also brake by itself if traveling at up to 30 km/h (19 mph) and encountering a slower moving vehicle in front of it, according to the City Safety automatic braking system.

Well, since we're more of an oldschool type of gearheads, we didn't trust the City Safety system enough not to press the brake pedal at all in busy city traffic. We did try once to see how much does it think before activating the brakes by itself and the suspense almost killed us. So, no thanks for City Safety.

It's good to know that the system is there, but we don't encourage anyone to let their attention drop or test driving at slow speeds without using the brakes at all. By using a radar located in the grill, three different lasers and a digital camera, Volvo engineers managed to add a lot more safety systems than in your usual “considered to be safe” car.

So, the City Safety system uses a triplet of lasers to scan ahead of the car for up to 6-8 meters (19-26 feet) for any slow moving or stopped vehicle. If the speed of your car is under 30 km/h (19 mph) and the system calculates that you're about to hit the vehicle in front then it will automatically apply the brakes to minimize the damage or even avoid the accident all together.

The Lane Departure Warning system (LDW) uses a digital camera to scan the road markings and the car's position compared to them, and, if it senses that you're crossing the lane lines without signaling it automatically assumes that you've nodded off or something and it emits a powerful beeping sound inside the cockpit.

The LDW is also working closely with the Driver Alert Control system (DAC) which can give you a warning consisting of a sound, a gentle brake and a text on the dashboard if it senses that you are driving in an erratic matter, or nodding off at the wheel.

On top of all these active safety systems comes the standard electronic stability control, the gyroscopic sensor to monitor any roll-over possibility and an army of frontal, side and head airbags. If that's not enough to convince you the Volvo XC60 is one tough nut to crack, we don't know what is. By the way, the euroNCAP crash test organization gave it a full five stars.

The premium compact crossover/SUV market is currently sliced between the BMW X3, the Mercedes-Benz GLK, the Audi Q5, the Land Rover Freelander and our test model, the Volvo XC60. What does our Sven have to set it apart from the bunch? Well, some would say the best exterior design, other the Northern flair. We would put our money on safety as a whole. Even though we didn't manage to actually test the City Safety system because we were too chicken, it seems to be the car's best achievement, especially when put together with the other safety systems.

The worst part about the car is most likely the rear visibility. Sure, the high shoulder line which moves up and towards the rear gives the car a lot of character and the appearance of a well-built automobile, but the way it manages to obstruct visibility is a big no-no. Also, the D-pillars are about as wide as a fully grown baobab tree. If it weren't for the rear view camera, the parking sensors and the humongous lateral mirrors parking would have been a pain in the a**.

The most annoying thing about the XC60 D5 has to be the engine. We know, we know, you don't need hundreds of horsepower to just drive a car from point A to point B, but this is as slow as a 40 year-old Buick driven by a granny from Miami. Its only good point remains the more than decent fuel economy and that's about it.