Volvo V90 Review 2026

With a practical boot, a beautifully-finished cabin, generous standard equipment and some of the best safety equipment of any car on sale, the Volvo V90 is a very impressive car. It’s family-friendly, easy to drive and extremely comfortable, making it a great alternative to the usual Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW executive estates.

The V90 is a clever piece of automotive design; you can tell it’s a Volvo estate car without having to think about it, but it doesn’t look overly boxy or anything other than modern and stylish. That same design theme also runs into the cabin too, which is discreetly stylish. Perhaps more importantly, there is plenty of space inside too.

Load volume with the rear seats in place is 560 litres, which is plenty for large suitcases or trips to a garden centre – but the cheaper Skoda Superb has more boot capacity for less money. That said, the V90 is still easily big enough for most families, especially in the back row where leg and headroom is enough for adults to sit in comfort.

The cabin is wonderfully finished, with leather upholstery as standard and a variety of upmarket finish options including metal or open grain wood inlays. Quality is seriously impressive – the V90 feels beautifully built, with a real sense of luxury, plus it’s packed with the latest technology, most of which is controlled from a large touchscreen.

The iPad style interface is intuitive, operating climate, in-car settings, connectivity and audio, with support for apps like Spotify. Navigation is standard and includes European maps and traffic updates, or iPhone owners can use their own navigation via Apple CarPlay, although that is a cost option rather than a standard feature.

There is a huge range of safety tech fitted to all V90 variants, including a semi-autonomous driving system that assists with steering and speed on motorways. Autonomous emergency braking is standard too – and it can detect pedestrians, cyclists and large animals like deer as well as other vehicles.

The engine line up in the V90 is quite unlike its key rivals, mainly because Volvo is continuing to push forward with its switch to electric vehicles and a phasing-out of pure combustion engined models. What that means for buyers is that the petrols and hybrids use the same 2.0-litre turbocharged engine, just with a different power output depending on how much you spend or with the addition of hybrid technology to alter the power output, while the two diesels are also differently-tuned versions of the same 2.0-litre four cylinder unit.

On the road the V90 feels quite big, which isn’t great on narrow country roads or in car parks, but elsewhere the car is extremely easy to drive and very comfortable, riding well over lumps and bumps. It isn’t quite as enjoyable through corners as the BMW 5 Series, but there are no complaints on a long motorway journey.

The Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate is bigger, but it’s also more expensive, while the BMW 5 Series Touring and Audi A6 Avant aren’t quite as luxurious or well-equipped, making the V90 an extremely tempting choice, and a family car that is especially easy to recommend to safety-conscious buyers.

It’s good enough though – there’s never a sense that the V90 can’t cope with tight bends or direction changes, it just tackles them with less precision and verve than its rivals from Audi and BMW.

Besides, any deficit on a B-road is made up for on motorways and dual-carriageways, where the standard semi-autonomous cruise control is a real help. It matches the speed of the car ahead, stays in its lane and will even slow to a complete stop before accelerating back up to the selected speed, all without the driver’s help.

The driver does need to have their hands on the wheel at all times and it does trip up when lane markings are worn away, but for the most part it works well, taking the pain out of rush hour on the motorway. It’s one of several standard safety technologies that sets the V90 apart from its rivals.

The V90 comes with a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder diesel in two versions – D4 and D5. The less powerful D4 produces 190PS with 400Nm of torque. The D5 is essentially the same engine (sadly it's not a five cylinder unit any longer) and produces 235PS with a hefty 480Nm of torque.

On the move there isn’t a huge difference between the two in terms of performance, so for its lower annual VED (pre-April 2017 at least) and company car tax the D4 is a sensible choice. That said, the D5 has punchier acceleration, thanks to a compressed air system that reduces turbo lag from a standing start – and in reality it’s likely to have very similar economy to the D4.

At the top of the range is the powerful T8 plug-in hybrid. This develops 407PS and has a 25 mile electric-only range. It's quick with a 0-62mph time of just 5.2 seconds and yet thanks to the fact it's a plug-in can quote official figures of 135mpg and 47g/km CO2. It’s expensive, though, so will have limited appeal and its economy figures aren't realistic in real world driving.

Euro NCAP tested the V90 in 2017 and awarded it the full five star rating. It achieved a very high score of 95 per cent for adult protection, with 80 per cent awarded for child protection. Pedestrian mitigation (latterly called vulnerable road users) was also highly-rated with a score of 76 per cent, and the rating of 93 per cent for safety assist was also well above average.

With such a high rating for safety assist it is no surprise that the V90 is fitted with a comprehensive range of driver assistance systems as standard.

This includes common features such as ESC, but also automatic emergency braking including city, interurban, pedestrian and cyclist detection, as well as speed assistance and lane assist. An optional Intellisafe Surround safety pack adds a blind spot information system, cross traffic alert and rear collision warning with mitigation, and is a worthwhile option.

The V90 is a car that is likely to be popular with people who need to tow, and the good news is almost every model is very capable in this respect.

All versions including the hybrid can tow 750kg unbraked, the D4 diesel can manage 1,800kg braked, while the B4 and B5 petrols can manage 2000kg. The hybrid is better still with 2100kg braked capacity, while the all-wheel-drive B6 petrol and D5 diesel are the best with a maximum of 2200kg braked.

Volvo has long been known for its estate cars, so it’s a little disappointing that the V90 doesn’t provide as much load space as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate (670 litres) or the cheaper Skoda Superb Estate (660 litres). Nonetheless, 560 litres of capacity from the flat load deck to the load cover is plenty for suitcases or shopping sprees.

Folding the rear seats is easy and liberates a maximum of 1,526 litres to the roof, which is plenty for flat packs and trips to the garden centre. The load deck itself is nice and low, convenient for getting dogs in and out, plus the tailgate is power-operated as standard, so while it isn’t the biggest boot it’s still perfectly practical.

There are no real complaints elsewhere in the cabin. The rear row of seats provides enough leg and headroom for adults to sit in comfort, while the front seats are among the most comfortable available in any car.

Quality is excellent, with impressive materials including leather upholstery as standard. Little details like Swedish flags subtly stitched to the sides of the seats make the V90 feel genuinely special, and are a modest nod to the car’s country of origin.

Various different optional finishes and inlay materials including open grain wood and brushed metal are available and they really lift the cabin, making it feel light and welcoming.

A slick, intuitive and large touchscreen system controls most functions including ventilation, navigation, audio and phone connectivity and is fitted as standard.

All versions of the V90 come with a high-specification infotainment system, with a 9-inch portrait touchscreen and a 12.3-inch digital instrument display. All models come with sat nav as standard, and also DAB, live traffic information, Bluetooth, voice activation and a built-in data SIM card with a year’s free subscription.

The audio system comes with 10 speakers and a 220W output, but this can be upgraded to a Harmon Kardon system with 13 speakers, a subwoofer and 600W, or a Bowers & Wilkins system with 18 speakers and 1,400W of power. It’s also worth noting that you need one of these upgrades to get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

You can expect to buy into the premium segment at knockdown prices, and the cost of that smart interior and clever technology shows up on the bottom line. The cheapest V90 is the B4 197PS petrol in Momentum trim which is listed at £40,485. The cheapest Audi A6 Avant is £41,475 and the least expensive BMW 5 Series Touring is £40,345, so there has clearly been some careful price-matching going on.

The cheapest diesel is also Momentum trim at £41,275, while the more powerful D5 version only comes with four-wheel-drive, so costs £50,760 in R-Design trim and £51,510 in high-spec Inscription trim. Still more expensive are the hybrid options - the T6 model is £55,180 in R-Design and £56,030 in Inscription spec.

There’s potentially better news if you’re looking at a used examples, as the V90 has been on sale for a few years so there is a good supply of secondhand examples.

It’s also still on sale as a new car, so if you’re prepared to shop around you can potentially pick up pre-reg discounts too. A trawl through the classifieds bought up lots of delivery mileage models at good prices: we found a 2020 T4 in Momentum spec with almost zero miles for £26,000, or a D5 R-Design with 10 miles on the clock for £33,000.

As for older examples, the cheapest cars are now already down to around the £20,000 mark. We found a D4 model in Momentum spec with under 40,000 miles for just £19,000, or a D4 in R-Design spec with under 25,000 miles for £21,000.

The B6 petrol is more powerful again and with four-wheel-drive, but as a result the claimed combined figure drops to a costly 36.2mpg.

The diesel options are more sensible with the D4 claiming 47.9mpg combined and the more powerful D5 42.2mpg - both should manage 40mpg and more when driven sensibly. As for the hybrid, the claimed figure 134.5mpg will be virtually impossible - but if you drive in the city regularly you could get into high double figures.

As for insurance costs you can expect to pay for the fact that this is a big and quite expensive car with a range of powerful engines.

The lowest rated model is the D4 Momentum at group 33, while the B4 petrol is group 34. Fancier trims and more powerful engines are higher still, with the T5 Inscription in group 37, while the hybrid is in a very high group at 44.

The B4 petrol (197PS) and B5 petrol (250PS) units are two of the cheaper options, and while they have decent performance they are also relatively thirsty.

The D5 diesel engine offers 235PS and combined with four-wheel-drive as standard it provides effortless acceleration and isn’t much less economical than the cheaper but less powerful 190PS D4 unit.

The petrol-electric hybrid is an impressive combination that offers the potential for great economy with strong performance, but if you don’t drive in town very much you won’t get any benefit - plus it is expensive in comparison with the other models.

As for trim levels, the entry level Momentum model is hardly starved of equipment, so it is not a bad choice - the only issue is that the engine range is more limited on this version. If you can stretch to it, the R-Design version has a bigger range of engines and has a sharper exterior look as well as extra equipment.