2017 Volvo V90 T6 Inscription A DoubleClutch.ca review with T.H.
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00:30wagon. For some reason, over several generations, it has attracted a weird
00:35combination of enthusiasts and soccer moms. But with this new V90 wagon, Volvo
00:41is clearly aiming to make everyone interested. As you can see, with Thor's
00:47hammer headlights, massive wheels, and a shockingly good interior, Volvo is
00:51clearly trying to win the wagon game.
00:56This is not a car. This is a piece of beautiful, rolling, Scandinavian furniture.
01:07The Volvo V90 Inscription. I know that it's an inscription because of the
01:12inscription of the word inscription written on the headrests. This is an
01:17absolutely lovely vehicle. This is about what I imagine it would be like rolling
01:24around in Scandinavian art. The interior of this car is absolutely stunning. We've
01:30got real walnut on the dashboard. Real, bare, open-pore walnut. I grew up in
01:37households with Scandinavian furniture, Scandinavian art. My grandparents had
01:42Volvos. My parents had Volvos. I've always been surrounded by Volvos, so this car
01:45means a lot to me. And the fact that the dashboard wood reminds me exactly of my
01:53grandparents' furniture, that's important to me, actually. Is it just, it kind of
01:59brings everything on home. Under the hood of this car, we have a four-cylinder
02:04engine. It is supercharged and turbocharged, so it makes 316
02:10horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. It has a very satisfying transmission as
02:16well. The sound that this car makes on an upshift reminds me of a Golf R with a
02:21DSG box or an Alfa Romeo 4C, the way that it kind of barks on the upshift. It's a
02:26lovely growl from the exhaust that you actually hear from the outside, but inside it's kept quiet, very
02:30refined. Now, how is it to drive? Well, in terms of driver engagement, there's not
02:37really that much there, I'll be honest. Even in the dynamic mode, which stiffens
02:40up the steering a little bit, you get a little bit of weight, but I can tell that
02:44it's not real weight. I can tell that it's completely artificial. There's a
02:48little bit of feedback depending on how you're going over a bump, but otherwise
02:53really not that much at all.
03:05Our all-wheel drive tester came with the optional Vision package, $2,000, the
03:10Convenience package, $1,500, and the Climate package with graphical heads-up
03:14display, $2,300, rear air ride suspension and active chassis for $2,350,
03:19diamond-cut wheels for $900, and the Bowers and Wilkins sound system for
03:23$3,250. So this car comes to a $72,825 before
03:30freight and PDI and all of that lovely stuff, which makes us an expensive car.
03:34The question is, is it worth it?
03:39Short answer, yes. Everything feels incredibly well-built in this car. The
03:47shift lever makes a nice dull thunk when you select a gear, you pop it over to
03:53manually shift, the doors just have this nice whoomp to them when you close them,
03:57center console and the glove box is solid, steering wheel solid, everything is
04:02solid. This car is very, very, very well-made.
04:08Of course, that doesn't mean that it was without its issues for me.
04:15For some reason, I can't find a comfortable position that I sit in this
04:19seat. I must have a larger behind, I think, because I'm having a hard time
04:24sitting in car seats lately. We need to go to the gym. Now, I always have a
04:29bolster on the side digging in, and if I move the part under my knees, it goes out
04:33any further. If I move that out, there's like a weird bar that kind of like is in
04:37the middle of my butt. It's not a pleasant feeling. However, the seats are
04:42heated and cooled, and cooled seats are literally the best thing ever.
04:46Alright, so we have a 9-inch central touchscreen. It's called the Sensus
04:50System. Now, it has a very large learning curve, as I've discovered. There are three
04:56screens, I think, and you scroll back and forth, and you've got like a main screen
05:01with four apps, and one of the apps is rotating depending on the previous app
05:04that you just used out of the secondary screen. Climate control systems are all
05:08integrated into the screen, which is fine. They're fairly quick and snappy, but I
05:14kind of would like an actual physical button to push for heated seats and
05:18steering wheel. Going into a menu is annoying. Sorry, I mean, it is. The result,
05:24though, is a very, very clean-looking dashboard. The actual fascia in the
05:29front here is just clean, clean, clean, clean. There's one knob and a home button.
05:35Okay, so this central screen here, navigation works well. Apple CarPlay,
05:42probably the coolest thing about Apple CarPlay in this one, is that if you
05:44connect your phone to it, you have the Apple CarPlay at the bottom, the regular
05:49screen that you always see in other cars, but you've also got your apps up top, so
05:52you can toggle back and forth that are going like back to a main screen, because
05:55the screen is big enough. Eight inches, as I said, right? So, we also have a sound
06:00experience location. Now, that's because this car has the Bowers & Wilkins sound
06:06system, which is, without a doubt, one of the nicest sound systems that I've ever
06:10used, not even in a car, in ever, right? It's so clear, absolute clarity in the
06:19highs and the lows, the mid-range is punchy if you want it to be, and if you
06:22don't, there's a full EQ that you can adjust up and down. So, it also has
06:26something called Studio Mode, Individual Stage, and Concert Hall. The Concert Hall
06:31is there to mimic the reverb of the Gothenburg Concert Hall in Sweden, and it
06:37comes with a fancy little picture on my dial here, and the Individual Stage is
06:40the one that I seem to use the most. You can actually adjust the intensity and
06:43the envelopment of the sound around you. It's really, really good. I was listening
06:48to the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky, which I used to test, because it has
06:52cannons that goes off at the end, and the thump from the cannons going off, and the
06:58orchestra, it's just, it's in here. It's unbelievable. It's really, really, really
07:03good. The technology doesn't end there, because the V90 can include some pretty
07:08sophisticated driver aids, and I can adjust with a single button how close or
07:13far I want the car to follow with the Pilot Assist or the Adaptive Cruise
07:18Control. Now, this system is scary at first. If you've never used it, it's a
07:23little bit nerve-wracking, actually. You know what it'll do? I'm gonna go into
07:26traffic right now, and we will try it, and I will show you what it's like. Okay, so I
07:31am turning the Pilot Assist on. Okay, Pilot Assist is completely on right now.
07:35You're supposed to keep a hand on the steering wheel, and I am not steering the
07:40car. My feet are off the brake and the gas. Okay, there's a red light coming up.
07:44See how long it takes to detect that there's something coming. Ah, scary, scary.
07:48Brake, brake, brake, brake. The car is braking. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.
07:54That's cool. There you go. On the highway, it actually works really well. It's
07:59actually kind of relaxing. At first, it's annoying and scary, because you're so
08:02used to giving the car inputs, but once you just relax a little bit and trust
08:06the insanity that is Volvo safety, you actually get a pretty comfortable car to
08:12drive on the highway. Now, compared to what I normally drive every day, which is
08:16like an old 2007 Subaru with a manual transmission, or my BMW, which is even
08:21worse to drive in traffic, this is essentially like driving around in a
08:25well-cushioned grand piano. The V90 also has Park Assist. While it can be quite
08:32finicky sometimes, when you get it right, it works really well. This first screen
08:36here, there's a lot of apps, okay? Okay, Park In. Okay, let's click Park In.
08:42Scanning right. Keep close to spots. That's what it tells me. Slot found. Stop to park.
08:47Okay, I have selected parallel parking, not perpendicular. Select reverse gear.
08:53Okay, look around. Check for objects. My hands are off the wheel.
09:00Okay, it is parking for me.
09:09And now I go into drive. Okay, yeah. And, oh, okay, so it goes until it hits the
09:19curb, then you select drive, and it parked me. Okay, I didn't do that. That's
09:24cool.
09:30So now, as for gas, let's look at my fuel mileage right now after driving around.
09:33Oh, I turned the radio on by accident. How do I? That changes the station. What do I?
09:38Oops. How do I? Still haven't got, there's a lot of controls in this car. Still haven't
09:42got the hang of it. Okay, bring that up. Oh, there we go. My average liters per
09:47hundred kilometer are 11.7 liters per hundred kilometers, which is actually
09:52quite good, considering the mass of the vehicle and the torque on tap. Now, again,
09:57the interior of this car, for me, is what wins it, even if the drivetrain was bad,
10:01even if it was too slow, even if it looked bad from the outside. This is one
10:05of my all-time favorite car interiors that I've ever sat in. I absolutely love
10:09the way that they've done this. You know what I hated? Was really highly polished,
10:14like, red wood in cars. That was a trend a little while ago, and I'm glad that it's
10:19gone, because I'm very, very sick of it. That and excessive amounts of black
10:24gloss. I see that a lot in cars still, and there is some black gloss in this,
10:29but it's very, very minimal, just enough to make certain parts of the car shine.
10:32But open-pore walnut? That is an amazingly awesome thing to put on the dashboard of
10:37a car, and Volvo, I commend you for that, because it's just classy to look in. I
10:42feel like I'm underdressed when I'm driving in this car.
10:46Sadly, I didn't get a chance to test the all-wheel drive system, which I've heard
10:51is very good. But I can tell you that while the car does feel as big as it
10:55looks sometimes, power delivery is smooth, and it feels very planted on the road.
11:00After a week in this car, I truly did not want to return it. It was just a lovely
11:06thing to operate every day, and every time I drove it, I grew more and more
11:12fond of how it felt, and how it made me feel.