2021 Volvo V60 Cross Country review: Chef’s kiss

A car or truck or truck isn’t going to have to be the very best in every measure to be hugely desirable. The 2021 Volvo V60 Cross Place is just not the most versatile vehicle readily available nowadays, nor is it the quickest, fanciest or very best equipped. But person, it can be a fantastic all-all around offer, a single that feels like additional than the sum of its Scandinavian components. 

Riding about two.5 inches taller than the V60 wagon (with a generous 8.three inches of ground clearance) and fitted with typical all-wheel drive as perfectly as hill-descent management, the Cross Place is created for moderate off-roading, to get you up that icy driveway or throughout a meadow to your most loved fishing spot. Unique wheel-arch trim and exterior moldings provide a additional strong search and are a nod to that increased capacity. You could possibly consider these injection-molded add-ons would spoil a attractive design, but the Cross Place is just as very and elegantly proportioned as the typical V60.

But not like its lower-using stablemante (which is readily available with a powerful plug-in hybrid powertrain), the V60 Cross Place is only offered with a single motor, a two.-liter turbo-four that belts out 250 horsepower and 258 pound-toes of torque. Smooth, servile and virtually silent, this tiny dynamo nevertheless provides a good deal of giddy-up and an believed -to-60-mph time of six.4 seconds.

This Volvo’s motor is backed by an incisive eight-pace automated transmission which is as clean as sandwich spread — except when it can be chilly, then it can be a bit sluggish to change. Luckily, this sluggishness disappears at the time the drivetrain thaws out. Talking of heat, for what it can be well worth, the V60 Cross Place has the quickest-acting steering-wheel heater I’ve ever expert, and the butt-heaters are likewise successful.

Driven in frigid Midwestern climate with a good deal of wintertime precipitation, this Volvo is a able steed, hardly ever dropping its footing or producing me to 2nd-guess its poise. Get overzealous with the accelerator and it will go playfully sideways on snow or ice ahead of the balance-management method gently intervenes to get you pointed in the proper way.

The V60 Cross Country’s steering is light-weight to the contact but however reasonably exact. A bit additional front-wheel feedback would be awesome, as would softer springs. The trip is certainly perfectly managed, but I discover it a great deal stiffer than it requirements to be. At minimum fairly offsetting the stony trip is this Volvo’s posh cabin. The front seats are supremely comfortable and for an extra $500 can give you a mild massage. The backseat also features a good deal of passenger space, at minimum for the outboard riders any person relegated to the center placement will have to contend with a huge hump in the ground.

Aside from its annoyingly broad sills that streak your pant legs with dust if you might be not cautious when disembarking and the affordable-experience, non-extending sunshine visors, the relaxation of this V60 Cross Country’s cabin is sumptuous. This example’s attractive, brown Nappa leather-based and laminated, open-pore wood accents search richer than an aristocrat’s study. The $two,800 Lounge Bundle also will get you a stitched dashboard include, four-zone local weather management, ventilated front seats and a couple other niceties. If factors feel a bit much too cozy, just retract the typical panoramic sunroof’s shade to let a tiny light-weight shine in. This interior’s all round design is normally warmer and friendlier than what you get from German automakers these times, even though some of the tech could be improved.

Volvo’s common Sensus Hook up infotainment method is as intricate as it can be ever been. And even even though it looks significantly snappier on this Cross Country’s 9-inch touchscreen than I’ve arrive to expect, it can be however not my most loved multimedia array. Thankfully, Apple CarPlay and Android Car are typical, even though they do demonstrate up a bit small on the portrait display given that it can be so tall and narrow. Augmenting that panel is a twelve.three-inch digital instrument cluster which is reconfigurable but often looks a bit washed out.

When it comes to security and driver-assistance attributes, this is a Volvo, so, yeah, there’s a good deal. The standard goodies like lane-preserving aid, automated unexpected emergency braking and blind-spot checking are all typical and perform very much seamlessly. Comprehensive-LED exterior lighting is also integrated at no extra charge. Over and above all that, this V60 Cross Place is also fitted with Pilot Aid, Volvo’s adaptive cruise-management method with lane centering. It comes bundled along with a head-up display, a 360-degree camera and a wireless phone charger in the $1,900 Innovative Bundle. This ever-attentive cruise-management method efficiently regulates the Cross Country’s pace relative to other targeted visitors, even though the lane-centering could be improved. At times it will get baffled and will tug back and forth on the steering wheel, which is a bit unnerving.

Adhere to the freeway the place Pilot Aid is in its ingredient and the V60 Cross Place must return 31 miles per gallon. All around city, it can be rated at 22 mpg and put together it must supply 25. In blended use, I’ve been averaging all around 24 mpg, which is not much too shabby looking at the chilly climate.

Even even though Volvo is not the only automaker to present a lifted station wagon, the V60 Cross Place is sort of in a course of its very own. The pretty Audi A6 Allroad and new Mercedes-Benz E450 All-Terrain are a riff on the identical system, even though they are even bigger, additional powerful and truly a better rival to Volvo’s very own V90 Cross Place. Continue to, it can be conceivable potential buyers could possibly cross-store these German choices with the more compact V60 Cross Place, and if they do, they are going to discover it noticeably additional affordable. As examined, this illustration checks out for $fifty seven,290 together with $995 in supply costs, a figure that also incorporates a smattering of solutions, by significantly the priciest of which is the $4,000 Bowers and Wilkins premium sound method. Eschew any extras and you can just take a single of these elevated station wagons home for less than $47,000, all around 20 grand less than an entry-stage Allroad or All-Terrain.

The 2021 Volvo V60 Cross Place might not excel in any specific area, but it can be however attractive and upscale, features a good deal of attributes and is nice to drive. With ample consolation, increased flexibility and Swedish good taste, it can be proof you you should not have to be the very best to be a winner.