The IT Nerd

The Volvo XC60 T6 AWD has a very good interior that you will love to spend lots of time in. Let me hit the highlights:

I’ve raved about these seats in the S60, and I’ll rave about them here. The drivers seat held me in place during spirited driving and it is highly adjustable (8 way adjustable… Though it feels like it has way more adjustability than that) including having knee bolstering for comfort during long drives. Put in the time to adjust the seat to suit you and you will never complain about long drives again. The seat also has three memory settings so that once you have that perfect position, you can make sure it’s always available. As a bonus, the front seats have pockets which is a nice touch. The front seats are also heated. The leather on the seats is top shelf by the way. You also get a look at Volvo’s signature floating console.

Here’s the console from the front. You also get a look at the gear shift which I note the “PRND” indicator is lit in this vehicle. They were not lit from what I remember in the S60. The screen is NOT a touch screen, but that’s fine as the buttons below as well as the redundant controls on the steering wheel it are more than adequate to control it.

Here you see the pedals, the dead pedal (thank you Volvo!) and the hood release on the left.

All the window controls and door locks are on the door where they belong. The surrounding surfaces are very nice to touch and the chrome is a nice touch.

To the left of the steering wheel is the set of controls that allow you to turn the headlight and tail lights as well as open and close the rear hatch and open the gas tank flap. The parking brake (an electronic one) is there as well.

The steering wheel is extremely comfortable and is just the right size as far as I am concerned. Plus…

Volvo has added metal paddle shifters to the steering wheel. They move with the steering wheel. (Thank you Volvo!)

Volvo has improved the blind spot monitoring system for 2014. I’ll talk about that tomorrow, but what they didn’t improve on is the location of the indicator lights. They are in the perfect position which is inside the car within your line of sight. Another note, if you have the turn signal on, the indicator will flash rather than simply light up. Nice!

You get a good sized glove box and it is lit.

The gauge cluster is a large TFT screen that you can customize…..

…..This is a more elegant view. It’s very minimalistic…..

…. or If you want to be more eco minded, this setup will help you to drive and save gas at the same time….

…. But performance junkies will love this setup which includes a power gauge on the right. Each of these three setups can be further customized to show as little or as much info as you want. Plus info from the navigation system gets replicated here as well. This gets my award for coolest gauge cluster in a car. The gauge cluster was visible in most lighting conditions. The only exception was having sunlight being directly aimed at it. Closing the shade on the moonroof solved that issue.

You get a start/stop button and a place to put your key fob below if you so choose.

Cupholders are important and Volvo has them dialed in perfectly. They held anything we put in them. Also, note the 12V plug in between them. The whole thing can be covered by a sliding cover that looks cool.

Behind the cupholders is a very deep storage area underneath the armrest with USB and 1/8″ ports.

Another feature that is very much welcome is the air vent that is on the pillar rather than the floor. That way you can control it and your feet won’t either freeze or roast.

If you don’t need to seat five, you can use this handy tray with two cupholders.

There’s a huge moonroof as well. Many people commented that it was one of the largest that they’ve seen in an SUV.

Let’s move to the back. You get a privacy cover and a decent amount of space in the cargo area.

To keep your groceries from rolling about, you get this handy piece of kit where you can have it hold  your groceries…..

Below that is an underfloor storage area which I can see myself using for snow brushes and other things that I need to have in the vehicle, but I’d like to be kept out of the way…..

…. And below that you get a compact spare.

Two handy features of the XC60 is that you get 40-20-40 flat folding seats, plus you can partially fold the front seat to get even more storage space. This is handy if you need to take a trip to Home Depot. One thing that Volvo could do is make the front seat fold totally flat. My Toyota Matrix does this and I find that to be very handy. I’m sure Volvo owners would find it handy as well.

Speaking of storage, here’s what two baskets of groceries looks like. Another note, the hatch is powered and has not only has sensors to stop it from crushing objects (and as a bonus, if it hits something it stops and goes back up an inch or two which other cars with powered hatches don’t do), but you can set the max height so that if you have a small garage, it doesn’t bash the top of the garage.

Notes:

• The visibility is great. I can see in any direction very well and there are no blind spots. Combined with properly adjusted mirrors, there should never be any reason why you can’t see what’s around you.
• Headroom is excellent with the moonroof. That’s a +1 in my book as headroom in vehicles equipped with moonroofs is often an issue for me.
• All the surfaces have some sort of low gloss soft touch material. It feels like it will stand up over time.
• The build quality of the interior is top notch. No gaps, no rattles, nothing that could be considered a negative was found during my examination of it.
• Four full size adults (well, technically three and a half full size adults seeing as my wife is 5′ 6″) fit inside the XC60 with no issue and were fully comfortable. Even the person who was sitting behind me seeing as I tend to push my seat back which affects the room that the person behind me has available to them.

For the most part, the interior is a great place to live. It is well put together and it’s a great place to take a long drive in. It oozes quality from every aspect and is well executed for the most part. The interior is a win for Volvo.

In part four, I’ll cover the technology which has been revamped for 2014. Stay tuned.

This entry was posted on October 16, 2013 at 8:30 am and is filed under Products with tags Volvo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.