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We had an 05 IIRC. Not many v8s in the UK and equally unlikely to find a T6 or T5. Over here they are virtually all turbo diesel I5s. The forums over here suggest the GM transamission is ok with the T6 (I thought it was only in the T6?) but I can't really speak to that. There is another transmission issue which basically makes the AWD into 2WD. These are really 2WD cars with drive transferred to the rear only when the front wheels slip. The transfer box has a bevel gear (presumably because they are all tranverse motors getting power to the rear wheels) and the teeth on the bevel gear can strip - resulting in only 2wd. Its really a problem on the diesels which have much more low down tq than either petrol engine, but was known to happen as far back as the 850T5 AWD. The forums suggest the bevel gear was redesigned at least 3 times in the history of the AWD drivetrain to try to fix the problem. I was quoted GBP1100 to fix/replace it but ended up trading the car.
What else goes wrong? They are known to be heavy on tyres and brakes. While that is common to heavy SUVs I think the XC90 is a little worse than other "sporty" SUVs like say an x5 as it runs on narrowish 235 section tyres and the brakes are a little smaller. They also go through wheel bearings as there is a faulty seal design that lets water into the bearing over time. Also handbrake cable stretches beyond adjustment range over time. Its a foot operated park brake thing like a Mercedes and our solution was never to use the horrid thing - not a hardship in an automatic.
What is good? Great seats and generally a very nice interior. Incredible utilisation of space and lots of nice touchs, clever stuff on the inside. Its a pretty relaxing place to be on a long trip (good ride, quiet, long wheel base, good stereo, DVD screens in the seat backs) and can be hussled along a twisty road faster than you might think. You can tell that a lot of the development budget went on the interior.
Myadvice is go for the latest you can afford as they did redesigns of the known issues over time to try to fix them.
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