A focal point of the Volvo XC90 is the big Sensus Connect touchscreen, which dominates an otherwise zenlike interior awash in soothing leather and natural woods.
The more time we spend with the 9.5-inch screen and interface, which manages infotainment as well as vehicle controls and settings, the more we are learning about its capability and discovering a few hiccups along the way.
Like many screens in today’s industry, this supercomputer centralizes controls while offering three pages of information and myriad ways to perform functions. Something as simple as putting a name into the navigation system can be done by typing on the screen’s keyboard or writing with your finger in the bottom left corner of the screen. The XC90 lets you input addresses by zip code instead of city names if you prefer, and you can scroll down to find the exact street and house number. It is perhaps because of its complexity that it takes a long time for the nav system to boot up when you start the vehicle.
Returning from a trip to South Carolina via Covington, Kentucky, the built-in Here local-search app found the location of tech director Frank Markus’ favorite Kentucky-bourbon store. It had moved since his last visit. He drew the name on the screen and easily transferred the address to the navigation system as a waypoint. It was on this same road trip that he found the Volvo nav system to be in sync with the popular traffic app Waze. Both chose the same obscure detour around a traffic snarl in Cincinnati, earning Volvo back our trust after a previous summer trip north where the map chose a route through little towns when all we wanted was speedy access to I-75.
Similar to today’s other sophisticated vehicles, you benefit from consulting the manual to discover the reams of features at your fingertips, many of which can be customized. You can access the manual anytime from a tab at the top of the large vertical screen. And you can do it with gloves on because of the infrared screen that senses when a finger is nearby and does not require you to actually touch the glass. It’s great for keeping the screen smudge free. And of course, there is voice activation for commands. Messages sent from the car come through clearly.
Once you know where things are, it is easy to access them. Resetting the position of the head-up display is a swipe to the left screen, which controls many of the driver-assist functions. Touch the icon, and then toggle up and down on the steering wheel switches to move it to the best angle for the driver. Swiping right from the home screen takes you to a page of apps.
The radio has features we love, including the ability to program in favorite TuneIn radio stations as favorites. You can also listen to a song on one SiriusXM station and be able to see on the screen what song is playing on other stations at the same time. But there were times when it was hard to swap radio sources if AM, for example, had not been used in a while and did not show up as a recent choice. It required screen swapping and a bit of frustration to locate it again. On the way back from South Carolina, Markus noted the system removed the satellite radio button from the recent sources list and listed all stations without their logo icons, depicting them as FM offerings broadcasting on the 0.0 MHz frequency. Restarting at the next fuel stop exorcised the gremlins.
We seem to have lost our ability to use the car as a Wi-Fi hot spot but are checking to see if it was somehow disconnected inadvertently or if it expired.
Our gas mileage could be better. With 17,752 miles in the first eight months since we took possession, the XC90 is getting 21.3 mpg. That’s a dip yet again, as we averaged 21.5 mpg over 15,031 miles including a rough mileage slog while towing a 3,400-pound trailer.
None of these issues has dampened how much we love driving the XC90, which performed exceedingly well a major snowstorm that dumped 11 inches in parts of metro Detroit. And with more harsh weather still to come to Detroit, we’ll be glad to have the XC90 and see what else it can do.
Read more on our 2016 Volvo XC90 T6 Inscription:
- Arrival
- Update 1: A Summer Road Trip With the XC90
- Update 2: Test Results, Glitches and Recalls
- Update 3: Testing Its Mettle
The post 2016 Volvo XC90 T6 AWD Inscription Update 4: Big Screens and Big Snow appeared first on Motor Trend.
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