And the XC90’s fuel tank will easily take it past 450 miles on one refill. I’d have liked to see economy settle in the higher 30s, but in fairness, hybrid assistance is less of a motorway help than it is in town, and when we ran a diesel Land Rover Discovery last year, it’d have sold its wonky-numberplated soul to reach 30 to the gallon.
VOLVO DIESEL GREENBOOKS FULL
And yes, it did most of its mileage only one-up, not carrying a full complement of seven in its exquisitely finished and robust passenger cabin. Yes, that’s with a fair chunk of 70mph-ish cruise-control action. Not the best to drive quickly – that’s the Porsche Cayenne – and neither is it the simplest to operate, with all the controls living in a touchscreen.īut so endearing is the XC90 that the fact it settled at 32-34mpg didn’t really perturb me. This is easily my favourite of the big SUVs. Credit where it’s due, it enriched these laborious journeys, soothing my brow when the gridlock closed in and wafting rather charmingly after it escaped the clutches of the capital. I spent a weekend in the XC90 and subjected it to a choked London commute, 150 miles of blissful motorway cruising and a good dollop of A-road nonsense here and there. Before the diesel occasionally punctures the ambience, anyway. In the creamy leather, soft wood cocoon of the XC90, you waft along, take in the view and wonder why anyone would buy a Rolls-Royce Cullinan. Nothing about the XC90 says “I’m sporty” though – it doesn’t even have paddleshifters – so you soon let dalliances like 'spotting enticing gaps at roundabouts' become trivial matters for less emotionally developed motorists. It’s up to the task, but panics when asked to kick down. The 354lb ft torque peak only lasts from 1,750rpm to 2,250rpm, but that’s the four-banger diesel’s comfort zone before it starts to sound strained anyway, so aim to plant the throttle in that wodge of torque and let the eight-speed auto do the heavy lifting. There’s no stutter in power delivery, no distant whining of electrical gubbins, just a smooth step-off and an amusingly rapid turn of speed.Ĭlaims of 0-62mph in a Toyota GT86-catching 7.6sec sound perfectly reasonable to us. The integration of a hybrid system here is second-to-none. Unremarkable, which swings both ways as a compliment and a negative. And because it costs over £40k – our Inscription trim test car is a £57,000 machine – that’s another £320 per year to The Man, ta.
By the margin of a measly three grams, the XC90 B5 trips into a £530 first annual tax payment bracket.
Officially this is a 154g/km of CO2 machine, which seems preposterously low for such a big bluff box. Well maybe don’t fly anywhere on holiday this year.
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