2010 Volvo XC60 Review

2010 Volvo XC60 Review Hi! I'm Mike Hanley with Cars.com and we’re here at Chicago Auto Show and this is the Volvo XC60. It’s an all new compact luxury crossover from Volvo that competes against models like the Mercedes GLK 350 and Audi Q5. It’s getting to be a crowded segment in the luxury market but the Volvo distinguishes itself by having unique safety features. The XC60 has a pretty sleek shape overall. It looks a little bit like a large hatch buck and Volvo uses unique lighting elements to help distinguish the vehicle and on the street. You can see here it has this LED lights running from the top of the roof all the way down to the side of the car coming around to the side. XC60 come the standard 18-inch alloy wheels and Volvo also uses lighting in the front of the vehicle to help distinguish it with these slanted running lights on the inner portion of the headlights. I recently had chance to drive the XC60 before the show. In overall, it’s a pretty sporty vehicle for a crossover. It comes standard with the three liter turbo charge 6-cylinder engine and that makes 281 horsepower and 295 pounds feet of torque. Now, all that torque comes on a low RPM which translates in the strong performance in the real world even on mountainous roads. The suspension tuning in the XC60 is on the firm side but that also yields sporty performance on twist to your roads. In this segment, you have to have a high quality cabin to be competitive and the XC60 does. You can see here that some of the things that separate it from its own competition include these two tone seating treatments which are a no charge option over the standard leather seats. This is the espresso and beige pattern. It also available with this lightwood trims in the center console. It’s called Nordic light Oak and it goes in place of the standard aluminum trim. The XC60 debuts a new Volvo safety feature called city safety. In this design to reduce the severity or eliminate rear end collisions, now it’s a laser base system that’s counseling monitoring traffic in front of the vehicle. And if it senses a collision may occur, it can aggressively break the vehicle. The XC60 starts at $37,200 dollars and that makes it not the cheapest crossover out there. But it comes well equipped and it goes on sale this March. For additional information on this car or any other, go to Cars.com and our blog, Kicking Tires.