Volvo XC90 - Travel Story Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Volvo XC90 D5 - Travel Story
Prices: £32,845-£46,780 - on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 15-17
Emissions: 219g/km
Performance: (manual) Max Speed 121mph / 0-60mph 10.9s
Fuel Consumption: (manual) (urban) 26.4mpg / (extra urban) 40.9mpg /(combined) 34.0mpg
Safety: Front & side airbags / ABS / SIPS / WHIPS
Dimensions: Length/Width/Heightmm 4733/1860/1562mm

THE ICE IS RIGHT

Our Rating: 7.6 / 10

On paper, Volvo’s big, spacious, seven-seat, diesel-engined XC90 4x4 looks an ideal vehicle for a family skiing holiday but how did it go in the snow? Steve Walker reports

It’s fast approaching five o’clock local time and the wipers are in overdrive, battling to clear the windscreen of the snow that’s been easing down with growing persistence ever since we left the N90 and began our assent to Val Thorens. There’s a good two inches of white powder on the surface of the Alpine road that coils its way up from the valley floor to Europe’s highest ski resort but the tyres of our Volvo XC90 have gripped faultlessly so far and it plods onward into the mounting blizzard.

It’s all an alien scene to the one nearly nine hours ago as we rolled up from the ferry’s salty car deck and on to French soil. More than six hundred miles of Autoroute monotony lay ahead through the kind of foggy dampness that could have placed us anywhere in the UK during the colder months. Then we turned off the trunk road, climbed a few hundred meters and suddenly it was hairpin bends, mountains rising like sharks teeth and every window hosting its own Christmas card vista. Big scenery and big weather like this are rarities in Britain but that’s partly why thousands of us migrate each winter to the snowsports playground of the French Alps and precisely why we picked a big car like Volvo’s XC90 to follow them.

Four-wheel-drive is a godsend in these conditions. Halfway up the road to Val Thorens we’d already experienced a couple of hairy moments where the front-wheel-drive Volkswagen Golf ahead lost traction, despite the extra grip provided by its snow chains, and began slithering back down the slope toward us. There’s not much one can do on a narrow road in such a situation except clench your buttocks, clutch your insurance documents and pray the approaching vehicle’s wheels regain some purchase. To our relief, things never became too dicey and the floundering Golf always managed to scrabble its way onward. By contrast, the XC90 ploughed on imperiously at a safe distance.

Even where the snow is compacted by the traffic and becoming icy, there’s only the occasional quarter turn of wheel slip to indicate that grip could be in anything approaching short supply. The TRACS system distributes power between the four wheels efficiently so that the DSTC traction control is rarely called into action and confidence is inspired in all on board.

Waiting up at 2,300m in the deepening twilight is the warm, pine-walled chalet we’ve booked along with ski hire and ferry crossings through leading UK winter sports tour operator Ski Collection (www.skicollection.co.uk / 0870 770 0407). All we’ve needed to worry about since crawling out of bed at 2.30am that morning was getting there and now the trip is in its final, most spectacular stages. Not that what went before was any less revealing so far at the XC90 is concerned.

Motorways are where big luxury 4x4s like the XC90 usually feel the most impressive and with a vast swathe of France to cross, we took to the two-lane Autoroutes with gusto. The XC90 delivers a polished performance at cruising speeds with a well damped ride and minimal wind noise around the mirrors and a-pillars at 80mph. Equally, road roar was virtually undetectable as we barrelled along through the flat farmland of Northern France.

The 2.5-litre D5 diesel engine looks less impressive on paper than equivalent units fitted to rivals like BMW’s X5 and the Mercedes M-Class but it proved surprising on our trip. We averaged 28mpg, some way shy of the official combined cycle average of 34mpg but still creditable given the kind of driving we were undertaking. When tasked with relaxed cruising duties, even at the 130kph French Autoroute speed limit, it’s highly refined.

After the mammoth motorway trek and before the snow closed in, there was some scope to hustle the XC90 along some winding B-roads. It coped admirably and in a way that belied both its size and the substantial load on board (four adults plus enough jumpers and socks for a week on the slopes). The engine doesn’t respond well to being gunned out of the corners but if a relatively even pace is maintained, the XC90 can entertain. Body control is good with vehicle easing itself into corners without the violent pitch and lurch of some big offroad offerings. The brakes do their job in a smooth, progressive manner and the Geartronic automatic