VOLVO XC90 2.4 D5 SE 5dr (2006)

Volvo XC90 - Lots of space for a big family

It's a car of two halves really. One one hand it's a stable family car with seven seats that swallows all sorts of baggage and stuff and never complains. On the other hand (when the family is not in it!) it's a real beast with loads of power and lots of fun to race around in. Really you don't think that a car this size will speed away from a standstill so quickly.

I have an 80 mile round trip commute to work, so I really wanted something comfortable for the long drives. The XC90 has got that all covered. It's good for long family trips too, although the third row of seats I've tried before and to be honest they're kind of a joke for anyone bigger than a smallish child. Great for us because we wanted it for that, but not so much if you're transporting a group of adults. Mind you the boot is still pretty big even with the third row of seats up. We had a look at some other cars with seven seats where it was either seats or boot! This car gets over that, it's well designed in that way.

There are some little things about the layout of the Volvo XC90 that have bugged me over the years. The gear stick is kind of a bit too far forward and is close to some of the main controls, easy to knock them especially with gloves on. Also the central bit behind the gear stick flaps up to reveal two drinks holders, but if you leave that down and just wanted a surface to put things on then you're out of luck because it's on a slope for some weird reason, so you can't balance anything there without it falling down into the footwell, which is stupid. The dash itself is also on a slope so you can't leave things on there either. There are lots of other spaces around the car but really I think better use could have been made of these spaces.

The XC90 is pretty tall really and my mother has some trouble getting into it. Maybe there could have been better steps up in to the car. I do like the high driving position as it makes traffic and parking really simple (especially handy since it's such a big car) but they could have worked around it for smaller people trying to get it. Likewise we looked after a friend's dogs for a week once whilst they were on holiday and the dogs couldn't jump into the boot. Having said that about parking, it is a pain in tight car parks, especially multi storey ones, but I don't see a way around that until someone invents a bendy car!

It gets through quite a bit of fuel, which is a main problem for me with a long commute. I think it's probably good compared to other 7 seaters but still getting painful these days. Insurance is also quite high, dunno why that is really as it's clearly a family car.