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We've gotten lots of new cars recently and we're finally letting go of some of the old. Our Volvo XC60 has left us. We had lots of good times with this vehicle.
Read the wrap-up of our 2010 Volvo XC60 on Inside Line. And let us know what you liked best about the all-wheel drive crossover.
Donna DeRosa, Managing Editor
"Riswick, don't do that to ours," I say. "Ohhh, you guys have a Raptor?" says the Ford guy at the booth. "For the purposes of this conversation, yes, absolutely."
Anyway, this week of course was the 2011 Detroit Auto Show (you've been following on Straightline, right? ) and in between press conferences and free espresso, I snagged shots of as many of our current Long Termers as I could find. (Note: Some substitutions)
Here ya go!
The 2010 Volvo XC60 has reached the end of its term with us and we're all sad to see it go. It did so many things well - commute, trek, carry, haul, motor, and cruise. But I'll miss it especially because of its style.
There's more to the XC60's look than just its graceful combination of the usual European-style themes, though. It has style without silliness, which is more than you can say of utility vehicles executed recently by BMW (X6), Mercedes-Benz (GLK) and Porsche (Cayenne).
I'd argue that the ideal of utility helps Volvo resist the extravagance of the German brands. A vehicle is what it does as well as what it looks like, the Swedes remind us. And in a world where so much has the sickly sweet odor of marketing, such appreciation for utility is refreshingly honest.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor, Edmunds.com
Last night was the first time I've gotten to drive the Volvo XC60 home. It's been here a while and I don't know how many more chances I could get. I seized the opportunity.
Where I grew up in Northern California, Bricks (200 Series) were everywhere. I grew up thinking Swedish automotive design was austere and functional. In some ways it still is. But the XC60 really opened my eyes as to how nice they are now.
Our XC60 is not the Ikea of cars.
By now you know that our longterm 2010 Volvo XC60 has a lot of motor under the hood, even if you can't really see it when you pop the clamshell. The mill is torque-rich at low engine speeds and hustles the big wagon around with surprising authority. In short? It's got sauce.
For whence the sauce came, click the jump.
Volvo has long been at the forefront of automotive safety technology -- our XC60 is loaded with it, from City Safe to lane departure warning to Driver Alert Control. For 2011, the XC60 gets a new feature designed to protect pedestrians.
Noticed this on our 2010 Volvo XC60's display. Any guesses what the "(74)" stands for? If you don't know, hit the jump. If you do, gold star for you.
I was browsing the online edition of the 2010 Volvo XC60's owner's manual just for fun when I came across an entry about Volvo's environmental philosophy. Now when I think about such things, I just assume they mean the car's fuel efficiency and emissions. But according to the manual, Volvo also takes into account the following:
1. Clean air in the passenger compartment which is made possible by the carbon filter which prevents sinister-sounding nitrous oxides and bydrocarbons from coming into the cabin.
2. Textile standard: Apparently the car's interior is also designed with consideration for folks with contact allergies or asthma and is made with "environmentally-compatible materials" that fulfill something called the Oeko-Tex 100 standard.
3. Reducing environmental impact by suggesting drivers do stuff like "remove unnecessary items from the car" to decrease the load and fuel consumption, "drive gently," and service their cars regularly.
4. The hard copy of the owner's manual is made of paper pulp from "FSC certified forests."
I wonder how big a part does this philosophy play in a consumer's consideration of the car.
Caroline Pardilla, Deputy Managing Editor
I love driving our 2010 Volvo XC60. Not only does it have kickass power but it has great visibility. Unlike with our Mitsubishi Outlander GT, I feel confident when having to switch into the right lane. I don't know if you could really tell by looking at the above picture, but no blind spot! Makes passing all the slowpokes out there a lot more easier.
Caroline Pardilla, Deputy Managing Editor
There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. If you're wearing the right stuff, then you can get through any kind of weather.
Driving the Volvo XC60 is like having the right kind of clothes for any weather. If you're looking out the window and seeing rain or snow right now, you'd be a lot happier if you had the key to this Volvo in your pocket.
carlisimo says:
04:05 PM, 12/22/10
kevm14, I had the same experience with a 2002 Camry. The current generation is significantly better (I'd call it "not bad").
How tippy does the XC60 feel? Is it sedan-like at all?
Carlisimo, one of the reasons I like driving the XC60 so much is that is doesn't feel tippy. The Volvo feels very sedan-like, from its seating position (you feel like you sit in it, not on it) to its solid road manners, it's easy to forget you're not in a traditional car.
01:50 PM, 12/20/10
My Volvo story and then question: I always loved old Volvos for the well balanced (read heavy) steering and brakes. They were frankly always more similar to a BMW than anything else on the road and according to Volvo were that way because of "safety".
Do they new Volvos like your XC60 still have the good steering and brakes or did they Toyota-ize them?
On Saturday I had the fun of loading the family (wife, two kids and doggy) into our long-term 2010 Volvo XC60 T6 AWD and driving the 150 miles to grandma's house and back in the worst torrential rain Los Angeles has seen in 65 years (I'm not sure that's true, but it was, and still is, raining hard.)
According to our death defying professional driver on a closed course our long-term 2010 Volvo XC60 feels great at 100 mph. Smooth. Steady. Stable. Effortless.
Scott Oldham, Editor in Chief @ 26,669 miles
I rolled my tired bones out of bed at 4:00 am to make down to our Cars and Coffee event on Saturday. There's an eerie stillness about Los Angeles that early in the morning. Adding to that feeling was a thick blanket of fog -- an uncommon occurrence, at least as far inland as I live. It got so thick, that I deemed it necessary to make use of out XC60's foglights. But what's this? Two foglights?
On my trek into the office today, I was wondering about the Volvo logo origins. Most people associate the circle logo with an arrow pointing to the upper right as the male symbol. My first thoughts: Austin Powers? The artist formerly (or is it currently) known as Prince? It's also the symbol for Mars, but none of these tell the story.
In the big scheme of things this is just not that big of a deal. But I've never let that stop me from whining about something in the long-term blog before.
The whole "apostrophe-turns-into-question-mark" issue used to be quite common across the Internet. Blogs were particularly susceptible to the problem, which I know springs from a coding issue between various word processors and publishing programs (and why you must "scrub" any Word document with Notepad before you post it). I don't claim to know the exact, technical issue, and trust me when I tell you I have no interest in understanding it.
But I'm less patient with the problem as time passes. Seems to me the brainiacs who program these computers should be able to figure out that when a character appears between two other characters, with no spaces on either side, said central chracter (regardless of what the coding says) probably shouldn't be a question mark.
When I see this in our long-term 2010 Volvo XC60's display it makes me think of low-buck blog pages from 1999.
Karl Brauer, Edmunds.com Editor at Large
I was reminded of something as I loaded our 2010 Volkswagen GTI full of donations for the Salvation Army the other day. Hatchbacks rule. In the case of our GTI, just remove the cargo cover, lower the rear seats and stuff it in there. Why would you want a car with a trunk?
I flipped through some blog photos I'd taken but never posted for supporting evidence.
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