My wife and I are looking for a new SUV. Something safe, sporty, and trunk space. We keep coming back to the XC 90. Would anyone recommend buying new or used? Are there any pro's and con's to either? Or should we look at other SUVs?

 

XC90 is a great vehicle. It's mature, being on the market for 8 years without major modifications (engines/transmissions have changed, basic structure / features haven't too much). There are various flavors -- 6 cylinder or 8 cylinder, R-feature package or standard package, enhanced electronics with blind spot information system, etc., but overall the vehicles on the lot right now are the same as those on the lot 4 years ago. They have proven themselves to be reliable, stable and safe, with an excellent feature set.

With that, there are substantial deals on the used market, especially CPO, that will get you 90%+ of the new-vehicle experience at perhaps 60% of the new vehicle price. Shop wisely and you can be much better off with a used / CPO vehicle.

 

We really like our V8 powered XC90. Fuel economy is as good as our V6 powered Mini-Van.

Used you do not take the depreciation hit but it could be a roll of the dice as far as the maintenance. You would hope when spending as much 60k on a vehicle it would be taken care of.

 

I tend to purchase certified preowned vehicles. The Volvo program is outstanding and I have yet to get a bad car through that program. It is, however, dealer dependent as I believe the dealer does the certifying of the vehicle. I think my dealer here in Cleveland is one of the best out there, at least in my experience, so I trust that the vehicle is as it seems.

CPO is the way to go if you want to save cash.

 

I'll mirror StonePA, the CPO program is wonderful, we bought our 02 XC and our 09 S80 this way. IT IS dealer dependant though, bad dealer equals bad certification (for us with the S80 it manifested itself with cosmetic defects that were promptly taken care of), but it does not change the warranty, so if your happy with the condition of the vehicle it won't make that much difference.

 

CPO is a great idea! From what I understand the car would get among other things new brakes regardless of the remaining amount of pad left. I also believe that the warranty is extended to 100,000 miles as well.

We may very well go this route next time.