2010 Volvo XC60 T6 AWD Review

2010 Volvo XC60 T6 AWD Review If you had a crush on your nanny, this one's for you. Short of being completely shrouded in bubble wrap, it couldn't do much more to protect you from yourself. Yup, it's a Volvo. The XC60 T6 all-wheel drive, let's check the tech here from. Alright now look, I like technology in cars. Why do I hate it so much in this car? A lot of it has to do with the details. Let me give you some examples. First of all, there's our Nav screen, that's an optional Nav system. And the screen is kind of dinky but it's fairly close. The resolution is a little bit Fisher Price, but I can forgive that. It isn't the only car that does that, but it's not a touch screen, so you got to work it via this crazy controller where is it? Right here, it's this little stick that goes four directions and a couple of buttons alongside it. One says back and one says enter, written right there where nobody except a bird overhead is going to see it. Now as you can imagine, I've had just about enough of this damn system right about now as I click all over hell. And even though I'm not big on voice systems, I'd kill for one right now. Unfortunately, there isn't one. The only way you can enter a destination on this whacky system is with this crazy thing here that you can't see or with this crazy thing right here, a wireless remote control, huh? Oh and by the way, when the vehicle is moving above two or three miles per hour, you can't enter a destination. Not with this, not with this, because Volvo knows better than their customers, so they lock that out so even the passenger can't enter a destination while the vehicle is underway, up yards. It does have this demo mode so you can preview your route but it goes so damn slow you'll be begging for a loaded handgun to shoot yourself by about the third instruction. Now that's all that happens on this LCD, nothing else. Climates here, Nav is there, audio and a couple of other things are up here, but they all have a different interface, a different technology that all they have in common is that annoying Volvo font. The base rig in this car is an 8-speaker system with a decent but not impressive amplification, a single slot CD across the board, even if you upgrade the audio system. That's a little bit odd. You do however have an Aux USB jack over here. Bluetooth hands-free technology is standard on all of the XC60's and you've got the little mini panel for that down here. Now Volvo is not the only carmaker to annoy me with this next technology. But I'm just annoyed by it in particular in this car. In this, you've got the key slot and the start-stop push button right next to each other. Now, I've got to push that dumb thing for a little servo to let my key go. That's going to break one day and cost me god knows how much to fix. And it's stupid. Now our car has the tech package which is actually a bunch of distance tech technologies. For example, adaptive cruise control, I can set how close or far I will be behind the car in front of me during cruise. But that also adjusts this sort of driver warning system which will put this annoying red light on the inside of the windshield to let you know when, “Oh you're too close to the car in front of you” because you're stupid and I'm the car and I know better. What? Likely, you can turn that off with this button right here. Then you've got your lane departure arming button right there which I would also leave off because when it's on, I find the damn thing is a day late and a dollar short. I was already drifting across the line before it's overly cute little chime began. Perhaps the most useful of these forward scary technologies is what they call city safe. I demoed this for you a few months ago and I got to say it's very effective and kind of almost nauseating to demonstrate because you feel like you're going to run into something. The XC60 has a lot of power I'll give it that, 281 horsepower comes from its turbo inline 6 and 295 foot pounds of torque. It's just that the power tends to come on in lumps around town, either thanks to turbo lag or the gearbox being overly in love with top gear or both. On the highway, it's a powerful cruiser though and it's turbo 6-configuration, though if I was considering one I would definitely try the 3.2-liter non-turbo just to compare. Now the XC is real solid, nothing rattled while I drove this car, even when the stereo was ramped all the way up. And it's a refined style inside, right down to the center console insert that looks like it could have been striped right off an IKEA Billy bookcase. You're going to pay about 38,000 for one of these guys with the in line 6 turbo and all- wheel drive. On top of that, it's 1700 for the tech package which really isn't tech at all. It's the “Oh, my god I'm going to crash” package. Multimedia package which is Nav, the better stereo, that's 2700, a few things are ala carte, 700 for the blind spot warning stuff in the mirrors, 550 for that freaky key that tells you there's a heartbeat in the car and the usual wow that's expensive 1800 for the rear seat entertainment rig.