Help! Cannot decide what to buy.

[scol]

Hi All,

First post so please take it easy on me.

I am looking to change my Evoque which has been a surprisingly good car but is just too small for my current needs.

I have been considering a number of 7 seat SUV's and have narrowed it down to the Kia Sorento (best value), the XC90 (Best Styling and packaging) and Q7 (Best engine/transmission and arguably best interior). I have driven them all, the XC90 twice with a 24 hour test drive to get a better feel for the car. Just for complete transparency, I am looking at an R-Design but that is mainly driven by the paddle shifters as I use them a lot on my current cars.

So, what made you choose the XC90 over any other cars that you considered and upon reflection, do you still believe that it was the right choice?

Thanks
Steve

[TheDufster]

In the XC90 you will find that the day to day simple things have been taken care of very well. A lot of thought has gone into the design and practicality.

This is what led me to get a first generation model and so I've followed on with a new one.

Also, I can't speak for others but the aftersales service I have received from the dealership has always been superb (over the last 8 years).

[Deman77]

I will second that. You will be relatively unimportant to Audi dealer, KIA would not know any better. With Volvo you will be their higher end customer as they are trying to make it into the luxury segment. They will make more effort.
If you long tested xc90 you have probably noticed that it's not designed to be driven hard. It progresses very smoothly and is very practical but for fun you will need to practice a bit to learn its limits as it's not a natural. Read up on what people complain about. Some things are in all cars (tyre noise, voice control, some entertainment system shortcomings), some things are pot luck (software or component glitches, battery drain). Accept the risks or flaws. No point stressing yourself on delivery about things people have been complaining about long before you decided to buy it. I imagine coming from Land Rover you should see reduction in dealer trips.
The big advantage with xc90 is the look will make you smile every time you walk up to it. with q7 you will just have to keep saying "but it's an Audi" or "but it drives very well" every time you look at it. I doubt you will feel special inside Kia like you do inside either of the other two. If you drove evoque it doesn't seem like you are the most price sensitive. Why no x5 or RRS on your shortlist - do you need "proper" 3rd row?

[scol]

Thanks for your thoughts and advice.

I have had Audi's for many years and have enjoyed an excellent dealer experience, I may have been lucky but I always try to make friends with the service manager which I believe does help.

I usually spend a lot of time researching cars before taking the plunge and in the case of the XC90 that has meant a fair amount of time reading the forums. This really helped me on the extended test drive as I could focus on some of the potential pitfalls rather than being distracted by the design and the toys.

I went from a first generation Q7 to the Evoque and my three biggest concerns were reliability, build quality and downgrading to a 4 pot. The car has actually been very reliable, even after 3 years and 30k miles there are no squeaks or rattles. Still miss the V6 though which is probably my biggest issue with the XC90 but like the Evoque, if you want one, you have no choice so best accept it.

Considered the RRS but I think that the interior already looks old (and the Tech is old) and for a similarly equipped car, you are looking at 20k more than the XC90/Q7 which is hard to justify. X5 has never really appealed to me and has no boot space with all seven seats in play. No seven seat option with the Cayenne, Touraeg, Lexus RX, Grand Cherokee etc. Kia is surprisingly good, if it had the option of paddle shifters I might have made an impulse purchase but would probably have regretted it.

So that leaves the Q7 and the XC90. I am one of the rare people who loves the styling of the first Q7 but Audi have done a really poor job with the current one, the standard wheels on the S-Line make it look even worse, Audi are usually pretty good at wheels! Quite how the exterior got signed off knowing that it has to compete with the RRS and XC90 is beyond me but it is a completely different story from behind the wheel which is after all where we spend most time.

So I am back to where I started, XC90 vs Q7, my ideal car quite simply does not exist at the moment, so just need to decide where to compromise!

[volvorocks]

If you have considered the Kia, have you looked at the Hyundai Sante Fe?

Regards

[scol]

Had not really given it much thought as it is essentially the same car as the Kia and therefore has the same drawbacks, looks a little better though.

[Lexman8]

The new Q7 may be better but the previous one was horrendously unreliable.

Like you say, it's no looker either.

[scol]

I did over 70k on a first generation Q7 with only one minor fault during that time, a lot of the early one suffered from excessive tyre wear but fortunately, mine was not one of them.

We appear to have drifted somewhat off topic so coming back to my original questions, what were the major factors that persuaded you to buy the XC90 over the competition and now that you have had a chance to reflect upon that decision, are you happy that you made the right choice?

Thanks.

[AB-UK]

I've just been looking at the Q7 configuration as a result of reading these posts.
The cost of the Q7 seems to outstrip that of the new XC90's.

However, I particularly noted that Audio provide a large range of paint colours from which you can choose. It costs an additional £2100, but there are some nice colours available.

It does amaze me that some manufacturers can offer lots of colours for their less expensive cars but when you pay £50k or more for others you only have a restricted choice of external colours
Lexus, Volvo, Toyota, for example.

It isn't too difficult to click a mouse button to select the paint required is it?

[Deman77]

For me I wanted a premium 7 seater that does not attract dirty looks. Seeing as Volvo as a badge is only aspiring to be premium, but the car itself really is it was 10/10 in that category.
I wanted to test RRS for comparison but my experience with arranging test drives was so bad with two different dealers that I had a bad feeling about after sales and I am not surprised given how common these things are in London suburbs.

The rest was about showstoppers vs nice to haves.
It's nice that it looks good, D5 performance is adequate, road noise on motorway was not something I noticed during test drive but it's wouldn't be a showstopper as my main use is suburban roads at moderate speeds, it handles better than I assessed during test drive as the more you get used to it the more confidence you get as it is much grippier than the body roll would suggest. The interior is amazing - it's airy, it's comfy, I love lack of clutter and how none of the fancy tech is really in your face but you can access it easily - I use just about everything and my 74yo in law uses nothing and all the default things are adequate for him to manage the car. The 360cam shrinks this car substantially (I find it easier to park than my previous Prius) and view from driving position is very good so I can confidently drive on the edge of narrow country roads instead of in the middle.
SatNav which I always run in parallel with waze has been as good as waze in fact it was less likely to modify the ETA.
Voice control is rubbish (second row has been heckling me with "cancel" until I gave up) but it's not critical.
B&W was the only option I didn't tick (main reason was that it was so much dearer than in US) and since half the driving involves playing "wheels on the bus" for the second row I am ok with that. Standard is very very good (definitely prefer FM over DAB as a source)
Regrets - not the car just some options. Knowing how well T8 turned out I would have probably gone with that - but didn't want to take the risk blind ordering when I ordered in July. Having driven hybrid for the last 10years I find low speed pick up from conventional engines very lacklustre but with no test drive I just couldn't bring myself to order it and D5 was surprisingly not bad. Now you don't get 5k from the government for T8 it is less of a no brainier but I'd imagine it will keep bulk of its difference come sale - for me it would also be a 1k a year saving in fuel though I would probably give up a third of that for extra insurance.
I ticked CarPlay but it seems it's too early in the lifecycle to bother. With no waze on it I doubt I will use it much (I haven't tried - I'm going for sw update next week).
I have to say that nothing has gone wrong with my car so I might have felt different if I had a sunroof leak or battery going flat.