2005 AWD Family Wagons Acceleration & Pickup

The biggest surprise came from the vehicle that on paper would appear to be at a disadvantage: the Volvo XC70. Trailing the highest-output engine here by some 47 horsepower (and one cylinder), the turbocharged inline-five in the Volvo stole first place away from the field in acceleration tests. How? With clever gearing and a turbocharger that lights early. Unlike other Volvos with similar engines, this one steps off the line smartly from 2000 rpm (max torque is produced between 1500 and 4500 rpm) all the way up to redline. There's none of that rubberband power delivery and brown-truck drone we've lamented in the past, and this one's good to tow up to a test-topping 3300 pounds. And, in case you were wondering, it's around a second quicker to 60 mph and over the quarter mile than a Ford Explorer.

We conducted an unscientific fuel-economy calculation based on the two weeks we drove these wagons. What we learned from combining bumper-to-bumper commuting, track testing, and highway cruising is that we drive differently from the EPA folks. No surprise there. We'd hoped these less-than-eight-cylinder vehicles would perform better than they did. We were especially disappointed that the Cadillac and Subaru underperformed even the claimed city fuel consumption, and the Dodge and Volvo fell between their city and highway figures--which is what normally happens. Our combined averages (and EPA city/highway ratings) were Cadillac at 14 mpg (rated for 16/22 mpg), Subaru at 16 mpg (18/23 estimated), Dodge at 18 mpg (17/24), and Volvo at 21 mpg (18/24). The Ford Explorer bogey mentioned earlier claims to achieve 14/18 mpg in city/highway driving. Our leadfooted results are no doubt worse than what you'd encounter, but they're telling nonetheless.

As road manners go, all these car-based chassis performed far better than any but the most expensive European sport/activity offerings and far better than any truck-based sport/utility. None feels particularly large or ungainly, with each averaging over 60 mph in our 600-foot-slalom test and orbiting the skidpad at about 0.80 lateral g. All easily dispatched mountain roads and highways. One anomaly occurred on the freeway in the Volvo, however. A particular tire pattern and highway rain-grooves conspired to produce a strange side-to-side head wobble that went away when a different surface was encountered. Forced to choose, a slight advantage goes to the Volvo XC70 for everyday driving, but the Dodge Magnum takes the enthusiast vote, achieving a test-track slalom run in the neighborhood of a Ford Mustang GT's time.

Finally, we fished a tape measure out of our toolbox and gathered some cargo-bay dimensions. These measurements were taken from the closed rear hatch to the base of the second-row seatback, between the narrowest portions of the rear-wheel housings, and from the floor to the shorter of either the upper edge of the seatback or underside of the sliding cargo cover (the safe load-height limit). Think of this LxWxH tally as the useable dimensions of a cargo bay rather than referring to the mathematical SAE formula the manufacturers supply. Of course, Dodge had better offer a lot of floor space; that Kustom Kar hatch limits cargo bar height. The largest floor and highest seatback was in the Subaru. Second only to the Subaru, the Volvo floor is large and, in fact, wider than it is long. As a bonus, the XC70 happens to offer the best rearview sightlines of the bunch.