I’ve owned an 2009 Acura RDX Tech, and now I own a 2014 Volvo XC60 T6 R series, this is my opinion of the two.
The Volvo is a bit faster, not terribly so, there is only a 4 mph difference in top speed, but the Volvo is a full second faster to 60. The gas mileage according to the stickers on both is about 2 mpg better on the Volvo, however, the sticker said 24 on the hwy for the Volvo, but we’re getting 28 to 30, not sure why because usually the sticker is too high, whereas the Acura got what the sticker said, the weird thing the RDX uses a Honda Accord 4 cylinder with a turbo, by all rights that engine should have gotten better mpg than the inline 6 turbo Volvo, but it doesn’t.
Reliability with the Acura was outstanding, I had 151,000 miles on the odo and NEVER had a single repair. The front brakes had the original brakes up till 98,000 miles, the pads lasted a very long time, the back ones lasted about 75,000. Not sure how long the Volvo reliability will be or how long the brakes will last since we just bought the car two years ago, but so far no repairs, and on the T6 there is a timing chain instead of a belt, yay! Maintenance cost between the two cars at their respective dealerships have been the same which surprised me because I thought maintenance would be more on the Volvo. Both cars use a timing chain instead of a belt saving you quite a bit of money on maintenance.
The Acura rides like a small truck, not comfortable for long trips, the Volvo rides like a car, so the ride quality is way better over the Acura. The Volvo interior has a higher quality look and feel to it, the Acura was cheap, a lot like a Honda with a leather interior, the seats started to show indentations were we sat and the previous owner sat after about 70,000 miles, and was cracking at around 100,000 miles, but so far the Volvo shows no indentations in the seats, or of remotely cracking, and both have black interiors and both were red exterior with sunroofs, but the sunroof on the Volvo was almost twice as big as the Acura’s. There was quite a bit more wind and road noise in the Acura vs the Volvo. I’m 6 foot tall, and my knees hit the side of the steering column on the Acura, but not on the Volvo. The stereo in the Acura front speakers cracked and I had to fade them out so they wouldn’t buzz, the rears were fine, but the Volvo system sounds better and it’s not the upgraded premium system whereas the Acura was their best.
I thought the visibility is about the same between the two, the Volvo does have sensors to show cars along its side, rear sensors and front sensors, while my Acura didn’t have that, the newer ones I test drove did, not that I care, I’ve driven for 50 years with cars that had worse visibility than either of those two and never had a problem without any sensors, you learn to compensate with proper mirror adjustment and moving your head.
I’m not tech freak, so it takes me a while to learn this stuff, but with use any of those two cars you get use to the crap, which I feel most of the crap they put in cars is totally unnecessary, and all this crap does is make cars cost $20,000 more than they should! Which one worked the best? I had trouble with both, it took about 6 months on both cars to figure out most of the stuff, so I can’t say one is better than the other they’re just different and both will take time to learn.
I went to buy a used Acura/Honda, Toyota/ Lexus but used prices were higher than what I thought they should be. The best price I found was a Acura RDX, which was cheaper than Toyota or Lexus for a car with around 80,000 was $5,000 more than the Volvo we bought with about the same mileage. I also looked at Acura MDX, a larger SUV than the other two, but you pay for it in the mpg department which I didn’t want to do, plus my wife can drive the smaller SUV better. Lexus RX350 were about $12,000 more than the Volvo, not a bad vehicle though, it rode almost as good as the Volvo but not quite, but it got worse MPG too.
To sum up, I am very impressed with the Volvo, I feel it is a superior vehicle over the RDX, the only question mark is going to be long term reliability, I never owned a Volvo before so this is my first experience with one, but hopefully the reliability will equal the Acura.