Volvo V90 Cross Country review

The Volvo V90 Cross Country is a more expensive cash buy, by quite a margin as it happens, than the standard V90 or an equivalent BMW 5 Series Touring and Mercedes E-Class Estate. Then again, if you want off-road looks, it's similar money to the Audi A6 Allroad.

We'd still stick with the cheapest version, though, the B5 (P) petrol, which can average 30-35mpg. If you're intending to do lots of miles, the diesel is more economical, though – expect to average another 10mpg or so. 

Head over to our New Car Buying service and try to secure yourself a great deal on a new V90 Cross Country because that will help to offset its pretty poor depreciation. In three years it'll be worth not much more than a third of the list price, and that's nowhere near as good as the A6 Allroad. Even commonplace rivals such as the 5 Series Touring will be worth more, and poor resale values tend to mean higher PCP finance payments. 

If you're a company car driver, all V90 Cross County's are in the upper tax brackets. If you want an estate car with cheaper benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax, have a look at the 530e Touring – it's a plug-in hybrid and they get a noteworthy tax break. 

To make up for its high price and alarming depreciation, the V90 Cross Country is extremely well equipped. As standard, it comes with all the items we've mentioned – the infotainment suite, the parking aids, the electric front seats and so on – plus leather seats, heated front seats, adaptive cruise control, dual-zone climate control, power-folding mirrors, 19in alloy wheels and keyless entry.

Volvo is renowned for its safety record and the V90 Cross Country has autonomous emergency braking (AEB) that recognises pedestrians, cyclists, large animals and, of course, cars. You also get traffic sign recognition, blind spot assistance and lane-keeping assistance.

The standard V90, which is virtually identical to the Cross Country, gets Euro NCAP’s full five-star crash safety rating. If you look at its individual category results, you’ll see it does a better job of protecting adults’ chests when they’re sat in the front seats than the Audi A6 Avant and Mercedes E-Class Estate.

Volvo finished 16th in the What Car? Reliability survey (out of 31). That’s well below BMW but above Audi and Mercedes. All V90 Cross Country's come with a three-year/60,000-mile warranty as standard, which is not overly generous.