Volvo V60 Cross-country: Elegant, Versatile Wagon

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Review: 2016 Volvo V60 Cross Country T5 AWD

This all-wheel drive wagon is every bit in your own home navigating busy urban commutes or handling a rough mountain road on the weekend getaway.


NerdWallet is really a free tool to locate you the best credit cards, cd rates, savings, checking accounts, scholarships, healthcare and airlines. Start here to maximize your rewards or minimize your interest rates.Philip Reed

Nerd’s-Eye View

  • What you’ll like: Elegant styling inside and out; strong off-road chops; smooth-shifting 6-speed automatic; comfy two-tone leather seats; sharp handling.
  • What you won’t like: Mediocre fuel economy; poor rear visibility; limited rear cargo space.
  • MSRP as tested: $49,775.

Gallery (click to grow)

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The skinny:

  • Current selling price: Discounts and incentives totaling as much as $7,229 can bring the value right down to $42,300. (Kelley Blue Book)
  • Resale value: Above average.
  • Service and maintenance: Included scheduled maintenance for first Three years or 36,000 miles.
  • Warranty: 48 months or 50,000 miles.
  • Competing vehicles: 2016 BMW 328i xDrive Sports Wagon; 2016 Audi Allroad Quattro.
  • Fuel economy:?20 mpg city, 28 highway, 23 combined. (FuelEconomy.gov)
  • Observed fuel economy: 21.3 mpg over 695 miles, in mixture of traffic, highway and off-road.
  • Emissions: 5 from 10. (FuelEconomy.gov)
  • What you don’t know: Volvo is currently owned by the Chinese Geely Holding Group, however this car was built-in Gothenburg, Sweden.

A wagon: Why don’t you?

Station wagons are largely a nostalgia item for Americans, and domestic manufacturers are?instead rolling out SUVs, crossovers and pickups. Not so with Europeans, particularly Volvo, which has always had a remarkable lineup of wagons.

The V60, a little luxury wagon, has been around since 2015 in five styles with three engine choices. We drove the Cross Country, which offers all-wheel drive, high road clearance along with a host of optional safety features. While pricey, it is an enticing package offering elegance, comfort and rugged off-road capability.

What it’s like to drive

The V60 Cross-country seems to have several different personalities to match different driving conditions. In high-traffic, safety features for example blind spot detection warning and forward collision avoidance provide extra eyes to look at rapidly changing conditions and deliver confidence in demanding situations. Around the open road, the quiet, well-insulated cabin and the sumptuous leather seats cut the fatigue and bring a feeling of ease to the road trip. A twisty country road reveals?the wagon’s seamless acceleration and agile handling. Inside a short off-road test, the Cross-country gobbled up a high, winding jeep trail outside Death Valley without bottoming out on the high-crested, rocky road. It seemed as capable as numerous SUVs.

The V60’s steering is pleasingly heavy, giving the driver a nice sense of the street. Four-wheel disc brakes provide plenty of stopping power without grabbing unexpectedly. The suspension is firm -?perhaps too firm?for some – but it cuts body roll in the corners and the 19-inch wheels provide plenty of grip. Acceleration is brisk and the midrange passing power seems especially responsive.

Engine and transmission

The V60 Cross Country is powered by a couple.5-liter, five-cylinder, turbo-charged engine which makes 240 horsepower and develops 266 pound-feet of torque. A shiftable 6-speed automatic transmission puts capacity to all four wheels, propelling the wagon from zero to 60 mph in 7.5 seconds, based on Edmunds.com.

Safety and tech

Safety features?- including blind spot warning, adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning – make driving the V60 an enjoyment in traffic as well as on outdoors highway. With rather poor rear visibility, the blind spot warning, which displays an easy near the wing mirrors when a car is in the blind spot, is really a necessity. Volvo’s adaptive cruise control can brake the vehicle to some stop and then accelerate back up to speed without the driver touching the brake or gas. This would be a great feature in stop and go traffic, but it’s additionally a big improvement over simple cruise control on long trips.

Our test car included the $3,600 Platinum package, which added a host of features including a Harman Kardon sound system, active dual xenon headlights – which turn because the controls is turned – and multiple warning sensors and cameras that demonstrate, amongst other things, the proximity to the curb when parking.

Shopping advice

While there’s much to recommend concerning the Cross-country, there is some fierce competition from BMW and Audi in this car class. Furthermore, lower-priced V60s offer all-wheel drive and get better fuel economy. A shopper within this category is encouraged to do a lot of comparative research and test drives to accurately match the right car to his or her needs.

Philip Reed is a staff writer at NerdWallet, an individual finance website. Email: [email protected].

Lead photo and gallery photos 3-6 courtesy Volvo Car Corp. Gallery photos 1-2 by Philip Reed.?

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