A car for the cold... bonnet temp -30°C

[SwissXC90]

On our winter holiday in the Engadine valley, canton Graubünden Switzerland.

Ambient temperature -20°C (without the wind chill)
Snow temp -24°C
Car bonnet -30°C
Car battery -14°C
Car showing -20°C ambient

Battery dropped 12% charge overnight due to the cold: parked at 100%, this morning is at 88%

THIS is why I love the parking heater, and having a good strong battery...

Ironically, I had no trouble driving here, apart from in Zurich, where I high-centered (bottomed out) the car on 30cm of heavy snow on an unploughed road trying to turn into a driveway.. Efforts to move had me sliding sideways towards a parked car. I stopped when I was 2 foot shy of the car and started digging out the snow from under my car.... got it out OK, and was happy I packed my show shovel! AWD worked perfectly... spinning front and rear wheels as needed...

[Paul Wildsmith]

heated seat temperature?!

[gmonag]

I've never understood why the XC90 does not have a heated windscreen, given its cold weather provenance.

[XC90Mk1]

Originally Posted by gmonag

I've never understood why the XC90 does not have a heated windscreen, given its cold weather provenance.

My Mark 1 doesn’t have heated screen and it’s the SE Lux. I always thought it very strange. I didn’t realise it was the whole range! Pretty crazy isn’t it.

[paddy74]

That's one of the very few things I loved about my LR Discovery: heated wind screen and heated steering wheel! But that was crushed very fast, because the LR is a constant cold car. The windows are crap, and the doors are measurable 4°C colder then the rest of the inside...

And let's be honest, the heated screen is a nice goody, but the rest of the year you constantly fight with the windscreen, because you see the wires in the screen.

Taking all this into account, the XC90 is far better. No cold shoulders, and the heater deserves it's name.
What I, or better my passengers miss, are the heated rear seats.

[owenfackrell]

Originally Posted by paddy74

What I, or better my passengers miss, are the heated rear seats.

What you need is the executive as that does have heated rear seats.

[paddy74]

Originally Posted by owenfackrell

What you need is the executive as that does have heated rear seats.

It does? Didn't know that, but that means I have a research project for the weekend => retrofit heated rear seats

[Harley Dave]

Even here in Spain, in the cooler evenings, my rear seat passengers comment on how snug they are in there (in my Exec...)

Cheers

Dave

[paddy74]

Originally Posted by Harley Dave

Even here in Spain, in the cooler evenings, my rear seat passengers comment on how snug they are in there (in my Exec...)

Cheers

Dave

Make me jealous I'm speculating to upgrade to a 3.2, that one would be an executive... But with that unclear and uncertain perspective for the next months, I'm not very tempted to buy a new-to-me car right now... :| Seems for now the old D5 has to run a little more, without heated rear seats.

[Moose Test]

Originally Posted by paddy74

That's one of the very few things I loved about my LR Discovery: heated wind screen and heated steering wheel!

Yes, as much as I enjoy my XC90 (especially today, with several cm of snow having fallen locally on untreated country roads) THIS is why I keep looking wistfully at Disco 4s and L322s on Autotrader. I do wish that the XC was just that little bit more luxurious.

It's a personal preference but I'd take the heated screen and wheel over a remote parking heater. That said, I have the V8 and it generates (reads "wastes") enough heat to bring the cabin up to temperature from cold much more quickly than my previous D5 equipped Volvos. But it's still not the 1-2 min defrost that a good heated screen can deliver.