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Also I do concur with one of the other posters on the third row differences. Volvo did this right when they had the seats fold into the floor for cargo space. The Lexus third row with the hang up seats is definitely a bad idea. :-( My husband and I have decided that we will most likely remove and store them unless they are specifically called for. Course if they are at home when you need them, then what good are they???!!!!!!
Also did you see my post on the GX forum regarding the armrests? We don't think that our RX had this feature but gosh maybe we were just brain dead for four years. Do the armrests on your RX lock in place at different heights or is this new? We are really appreciating this feature on the GX.
For those who want to understand the technical stuff. I noticed the link to the SUV of the year and think the brake system was one of the things that made the XC90 different.
Perhaps I'm being trivial, and I consider myself lucky that this is my only beef, but - THERES NO PLACE TO PUT CHANGE FOR THE TOLLBOOTHS! I'm a bit surprised that saftey consious Vovlo is satisfied having its drivers diggin' for change on the highway. Gee, there's a nifty pen holder built into the dash, and two pen-holders in the glove compartment, but no place to put the darn change you get at the drive-thru or to pull from when you need some.
Also, it seems when you are using the rain-sensetive wipers and you turn off the car, you must turn off the wipers and set them back to intermittent to get them working properly again. Does anyone else notice this or am I doing it wrong or are they not working properly?
I noticed the change thing also, but I use EZ-Pass, so I don't need change for the tollbooths.
My rain sensor does the same thing. It annoyed me at first, but then I realized that it might save me at the car wash--I could see myself using the rain sensor on a rainy day. Two dry days later while watching my car go through the car wash, I can just picture watching the wipers springing into action. Yikes! So maybe that's why you have to activate them every time the car is turned on.
There are several wonderful amenities I wasn't aware of despite my extensive research before buying: safe approach headlight timer, mirror and seat memory settings responding to the specific key chain that unlocks the car, novel stereo controls, unobstructed access to 3rd row seats with two car seats in the 2nd row, IAQS re-circulation timer, etc. We love it so far. It turns lots of heads, especially in our area. There's one Volvo dealer in our county and they've only delivered three XC90s to date. One got wrecked within the first couple of days, so ours is one of the only two on the road (aside from their demos) in the whole area.
The only negative things I noticed are: it's a little jumpy/lurchy of the line (turbo lag effect?), the front brakes make a whiny sound for a second when you put your foot on the pedal and the car is off (electronic brake assist system?), the stereo seems like it may not play CDs burned on a computer very well (skipping/intermittent). Also, while I was waiting on the paperwork at the dealer, I checked out one of their XC90 demos and found a rear door latch failure (wouldn't open from the outside). I'm hoping that was a fluke. Anyone else with similar observations and/or information about them?
1. two Britax Roundabouts fit well side-by-side in middle and outboard 2nd row (contrary to what I've read here
2. unobstructed access to 3rd row seats with two car seats in the 2nd row
I'm not sure why the others say that this could not be done. I was already thinking of forgoing the Versatility PKG due to supposed obstruction created by 2 Britax Roundabout car seats in the configuration you described. I am actually thinking of completely forgoing the XC90 in favor of the MDX.
Now we were in a rush as we did this at the introductory party and had many people wanting to crawl all over the car. Others also brought seats for the same reason we all left there thinking that it could be done with smaller seats but not the ones we brought.
So if I am wrong than I am very excited as we are awaiting our car. But a Roundabout and a Marathon side-by-side did not work for us (together they take up almost 40 inches) but maybe if we had more time to play, or moved the booster forward a bit so the arms of the two seats could have "overlapped" it would have worked.
I have played with these seats so much I dream about them. After 2 hours at Baby's r Us this weekend I was able to squeeze 3 seats into a Saab 9-3! Two narrow 5-point harness booster seats and one narrow (Baby Trend - the narrowest one sold according to the staff) infant seat, but all are less than 17 inches in width. There is literally about 1/2 inch to spare on either side and the infant seat needs to be "wedged" in to lock into place. Saved my butt and has taken some pressure off to get my XC90 ASAP.
An aside, Baby's r Us is really great, they helped me cart out and hook up various combinations of demo seats (took three iterations) until we found three that worked. They were so helpful and courteous that I could hardly beleive it. The young woman helping me was also quite knowledgeable and said that mine was a common problem.
My wife and I also brought a Marathon and a Roundabout to the Dealer's introductory party, and left there feeling it was marginal, but do-able. We returned the Marathon because we felt it was monstrous in general and decided to stick with our two Roundabouts in the meantime. I have the center one forward facing for my toddler and the outboard carseat rear facing for my 9-month old. With one forward and one rearward, they kind of inter-mesh to save a little space.
The best configuration I found is to slide the center one forward. This helps decrease the overall width and create extra clearance for the empty 2nd row seat to tilt/slide forward for rear access. I think if both Roundabouts are forward facing and the 2nd row seats are slid all the way back, then it will be tighter, but still work (seat back may rub against carseat during rear access in this case). Its best to slide that center seat forward. Also, I think the Marathon might be too wide and block rear access if you didn't slide the center seat forward.
I hope these details help.
"The only negative things I noticed are: it's a little jumpy/lurchy of the line (turbo lag effect?)"
I noticed this too at first, but mine seems to have calmed down.
"The stereo seems like it may not play CDs burned on a computer very well (skipping/intermittent)."
I haven't noticed this at all. I've been busy burning CDs for my car and they all work beautifully, so far. I have 4 CD-Rs in and I have the player set to play all disks at random (a feature that I LOVE). I have CD text enabled on my software/burner so that the songs titles show up on the screen. Pretty cool!
I had an odd experience with the radio the other day. I was listening to CDs and then switched to FM--but the radio was dead. No text on the screen, no sound. CD worked fine. Nothing I pushed brought the radio back. Turned off the car and when I turned it back on, the radio was fine and I haven't seen the problem since. I mentioned it to my dealer and he had the same thing happen on the demo he was driving. He's going to ask service about it. Has anyone else had this happen?
I missed the delivery of my nav disk today, darn it. Hopefully tomorrow (I picked up the car New Year's Eve and have been waiting, not so patiently, to try out the navigation system).
Sharon
We picked ours up Dec. 24th. We have a two year old and a five year old. I have never even considered placing them side by side in row 2, due to the face grabbing leg kicking nature of children these ages.
We did however place our five year old in the back and our two year old in the middle row (opposite sides of the car) just to see if it worked. Would have worked great but the kids were lonely!!!
So ultimately the best positions are the same as in any car - outboard positions in row 2. I still wouldn't change a thing though - I love the flexibility offered by the third row and I'd order it again.
So can anyone tell me how they get kids not to kill each other when they're right next to each other?
An interesting comment from the "swedespeed forum" where there is coincidentally another car seat discussion:
http://forums.swedespeed.com/zerothread?id=6643:
"Additionally, the second row center section is too narrow for regular booster seat (thereby blocking access to row three on both sides). You're pretty much forced to put a car seat in an outboard position, blocking access to row three from that side. Volvo has a center section seat solution that looks great, but for $277!!??
jvincent"
So it is a bit confusing to me as most booster seats I have seen are even smaller than the Britax seats. Maybe i_yellow could give us more detail on they did this and preserved access to the third row. (Are the seats both forward facing? Is the integrated seat slid forward?)
Thanks.
Radio - Two or three times, one of my preset stations has gone dead. The others work fine, the CD works fine, but the radio acts like it isn't receiving a signal from the #1 preset. It hasn't happened but a couple of times and I wasn't worried until others here mentioned it. Please let us know what the dealer says.
Rear Door - I have had problems with the rear door on my 2.5T. I have the child safety lock activated. When I go to open it from the outside, the door relocks. I have to go through a couple iterations of lock, unlock before I can access my daughter. Is there some trick to the child safety lock with Volvo's or could this be related to the issue described by i-yellow. I must say, it is highly frustrating and getting old quickly.
For those having radio issues, do you have the Dolby II system or just the regular system?
If you smoke, and I don't, you need to specially order the cigarette lighter, because there is none. Also, the climate control system seems to be a little slow. It was 35* the other day and was shooting out cool air an hour into the trip. Strange...
We had a few challenges with the Nav, including getting the voice to work. We have experience with a portable auto GPS (Garmin)and we have been using an aviation GPS for years, so the concept is not new to us. Anyone else having a problem?
On another note, I will say I love my fully loaded T-6. The only thing I miss from my Lexus RX300 is the storage in the center consol and the extra storage compartments. This car has been worth the wait, although I am a bit cautious and check the board to read about the experiences of other new owners.
Of the seats I used, the Britax fit the best--perfectly, actually. I had purchased it for my ML320 as part of their Baby Smart system--it disabled the airbag when placed in the front passenger seat of a Baby Smart equiped Mercedes. (I wish volvo had offered that feature).
The Century seats were useable, but I didn't like how they fit.
The third row worked out well. I didn't realize that the head restraints on the 3rd row seats are fixed; I had hoped to lower them a bit. But with my mirrors adjusted for a wider view, visability was fine.
Later that day I had to drive around Hoboken, NJ (very congested, narrow streets). The car was a pleasure to drive; it manuvered beautifully around double-parked cars and through heavy traffic.
I haven't seen an improvement in my gas mileage yet. Around town I'm only seeing 15.5. This is only my second tank of gas. I hope I see some improvement soon.
Someone had asked which radio had been having problems. I have the upgraded radio and the FM outage has only happened once. I can't figure out what might have triggered it.
Thanks.
-rollie
I guess it was a black eye for MB, but the BabySmart issue apparently only occurred when the parent incorrectly installed the seat, or installed it with the seatback forward of the vertical position (which is technically an incorrect installation too). In that case, the "airbag off" indicator on the dash would not go on because the airbag was not deactivated. That should have been a clue to parents that they had the seat incorrectly positioned. It wasn't as if the attentive parent was driving around thinking the bag was deactivated when it was not (so long as they checked for the "airbag off" indicator -- which they should always do with any system that deactivates an airbag!).
When MB replaced the seat (with a seat that would deactivate the airbag even when the seat was incorrectly installed!), they also provided a video on proper seat installation.
The preference of course is to keep the seats in the second row, but at least BabySmart offers a solution for front-row placement for those who absolutely need it.
Does the XC90 offer a way for the user to turn off the front passenger airbag?
I'm still surprised that Volvo discourages the use of child seats in the third row, but tacitly approves them. They should make a stance one way or another.
I do love the integrated booster feature, though. More SUV manufacturers should offer some type of integrated booster option.
Seems like quite a few people here have Roundabouts. Another good seat mentioned here previously would be the new Britax Marathon -- basically a Roundabout that goes to 65 lbs (though most kids will outgrow it in height before reaching that weight). However, it's larger than Roundabout and will pose more fit challenges. If you want a seat-fit challenge, though, try the new Britax Husky, which is a massive, forwarding-facing-only seat that keeps a child up to 80 lbs in a five-point harness. But it's so wide that I'm sure that three won't fit in one row.
However, a Starriser Comfy (belt-positioning booster up to 80 lbs) isn't particularly wide and should fit well into the second row, for kids who are large enough for such a booster? I believe its maximum width is 15.5" (in the seatback). The cushion itself is width-adjustable for the child's comfort and maxes out at 12.5".
Yes, there was a recall, my seat wasn't part of that and wmquan is correct that the issue was incorrectly installed seats. My Mercedes dealer has large wanted posters up in the service area to alert customers. Baby Smart is a very useful feature. It was not a feature I used often, but when needed, it was invaluable.
Very few parents actually think about how the car seat fits the car. The police departments in my area offer car-seat clinics every once in a while, where they will check you seat's installation and help you reinstall it correctly (Babies R US has sponsered some). I happened to be at Babies R Us when a clinic was wrapping up and spoke with the policeman who had been checking seats. He said that the majority of the seats he checks are installed incorrectly or do not properly fit in the car. Most people seem to buy seats because they like a feature or the color. They don't realize that not every car seat fits every car and an incorrectly installed car seat, no matter how well designed, can be deadly in an accident.
I highly recommend visiting one of these clinics. Hahacky (probably spelled that wrong!) tried just about every car seat in the store to find the right configuration for his car. I don't think most people know you can do that.
Sharon
Anyone out there with a T6 that can comment on their experience with gas milage and total miles driven per tank?
Steve, Host
Hahacky-I've been going through the manual to see if there is an answer to your question, but I'm coming up empty. I've looked at both the printed manual and the CD version (manual in motion). The second row has ISOFIX fasteners, top tether anchorages, and automatic locking seat-belt retractors (does away with the stupid locking clip I always had to use when my guys were in car seats) for securing car seats. The manual on CD, which is very good btw, has a video showing a car seat being secured using all of these devices. But I have found no references to using car seats in the third row. I thought I had seen it somewhere; I'll keep looking.
If I were you I would drag my car seats down to the dealer, install them in the third row and drive around. I'm not sure you will have visual contact with your little ones back there--and that used to make me crazy. It's a mom thing, I guess. You also want to make sure that getting them in and out of the car seats back there is going to be relatively easy--or it WILL drive you nuts after a while.
Steve: I didn't realize there was a child-seat discussion. I'll have to take a look.
For the person who was asking about the navigation voice: I received my disk today and gave it a try. I'm not noticing any problems--can you be more specific about what you were experiencing? Did it occur right away or after some use?
It's pretty cool! This is my first experience with navigation in a car, so I have nothing to compare it to. I like the location of the screen--it makes it easy to keep an eye on the road. The pop-up design makes me a little nervous (just something to break down the road) but I do like the location. I drove around areas I know today to get a feel for the device. It had my son's nursery school in the facilities section and quite a few local restaurants, gas stations... I purposely ignored directions to see what it would do and it seemed to recover nicely. My kids expected the voice to start yelling at me: "mom, it said to turn left not right; he's going to be mad!"
Sharon
I live in Boston suburbs, so there's lots of snow. And I'm in kind of a hilly area, so that hurts too (see earlier post on this forum explaining things that can affect mpg calcs).
Hope this info is useful.
Thanks
To be frank, I've been through a slew of Volvo dealers in the Northeast (Boston area) and California over the last 5 years and have NEVER heard of a dealership that doesn't give a loaner car to it's own customers (almost always a new Volvo to boot). The exception MAY be the case where you get the car serviced at a dealership different from where you purchased your car (in my case I've never had a problem getting a loaner after moving from one area of the country to another but I suspect that simply buying at one local dealer and trying to get a loaner for service at another local dealer would be problematic in some cases.)
Either way, I would encourage you to speak to a salesperson at the dealership and ask them if a lack of a loaner car is their understanding. I can't say it's impossible but I've never seen it. If it is the case I would highly recommend you skip this dealership completely. Out of curiousity, where are you located? I suspect members here on this board may be able to steer you to the best local dealership if you have more than one option.
Good luck.
-rollie
Like I said before, perhaps a Lexus or the Toyota Sequoia would be a better choice due to better reliability and less maintenance costs ( people are talking of over $500 a visit). I would like to decide today--any advice?
Average speed is 23
Average MPG is 16
Our weather here in Houston will only get warmer into the new year so a bit worried the MPG will drop.
No problems to report and a joy to drive. Getting quite good at lip reading people saying Volvo as we drive by.
How about the local Acura dealer for the MDX? Gads, to think that the Acura dealer would offer better service than the Volvo, but it may be the case for you out there. The reliability (3rd year production) and maintainence costs both score better. It's just a question of whether you like the MDX.
We bought at a distant Volvo dealership and service with the one locally. The first time they gave us some hassle, but after removing the dealer name plates, the local servicing was excellent. Loaners should always be available, along with the gormet coffee
Good luck!
1) xc90 waiting period is 4 months, more or less. dealer promises delivery on a certain date but can't keep up with their promises.
2) volvo dealer told me the $1,000.00 deposit money won't be returned unless the vehicle is sold. next step would be to go to FTC and file my complaint.
3) money down to lease a 2.5T with premium, versatility, climate package, and added in with dvd entertainment system and cross rails is mind-numbing $8,000.00! the 42-month lease is around $530.00, while residual is $24,200.00.
a comparably-priced 2003 acura MDX with Touring Nav package will get you the following:
1) gps navigation with voice recognition for all 50 states (which operates in all weather condition, by the way); 6-disc in-dash cd player; standard 7-seats; tilting passenger-side mirror when backing up plus a rear camera to get a clear view!; tilt leather steering wheel (which is smooth to the touch!); a powerful but quiet 260-hp engine equipped with 17"-wheels; DVD entertainment system with DVD and VCR players; a powerful radio and running boards. i had a rear spoiler also installed on the acura. the ride is soft and cushioned, and the transmission shifts smoothly and quickly from stops. also, no annoying sounds or wind noise during highway cruising.
2) money down for the above-referenced acura mdx is only $4,450.00 (would only be $2,500.00 if not for the added running boards and dvd entertainment), 48 month lease is for $560 (would have been $550.00) and residual is $ 22,700.00. i didn't put a penny deposit to get this car.
3) the 3rd row seats for the acura can also accommodate young adults 5'5" or less. they can sit comfortably by placing a booster seat that you can purchase at a local r&s strauss. there's still good amount of head clearance even with the boosters on.
4) meanwhile, the only volvo advantage vs mdx: vehicle safety with all the curtain side airbags plus the boron steel roof. other than that, acura wins with reliability, dependability and customer satisfaction (check out j.d. power and associates). volvo cannot promise all that. even the s80 has plenty of problems going into its 3rd year of production.
5) there's a noticeable "hump" in the middle of the second row floor of the xc90 (much like in a sedan) which my little girl finds annoying when we test-drove the xc90 months ago. you won't find it in the acura, nor in the seqouia or even the montero. thus, the xc90 can only accommodate 6 passengers "comfortably".
so there you are, folks. just a little piece of information and enlightenment.
Regarding service, we have had top-notch service from their service department for 4 years. They have done everything to accommodate us. We are very pleased with this dealer.
Thanks.
Steve, Host