My husband and I are considering purchasing either the Volvo or the Acura, We are a family of 3, with one young child. I own an Acura now and trust their reliability and service experience. I have never owned a Volvo, so I have no experience with them. We hang onto our cars for a long time and would use the vehicle for daily driving (dropping off/picking up the little one from school) and some occasional weekend trips. Our other vehicle is a Toyota 4Runner with 223,000 miles on it (but still reliable).
Which do you think is the better choice?
No brainer, the Acura all the way. Volvos don’t age very well, and they tend to cost an arm and a leg to keep going when they do.
Acura. The maintenance costs on a Volvo can be staggering, especially as they accumulate miles.
If you buy a Volvo, trade it for something else about a month before the warranty expires.
Buy the Volvo, but sell it as soon as you get to the end of the 5 year all inclusive maintenance program. If you plan to keep this car a long time 10 years or 200K miles then don’t even think about the Volvo. The repairs expenses will kill your budget.
Another Acura vote, just make sure it’s big enough for your needs.
Acura…expensive Hondas but you get what you pay for.
Another vote for the Acura. Like many, you may be keeping cars a long time because they remain reliable and you are satisfied with them. Most Volvos, according to CR have neither the reliability or the satisfaction rating of your Acura or 4runners.
Acura; this is a no-brainer. My neighbor’s wife works weird hours at a local hospital. She needs to leave the house before the snow plows even get going. She’s had the Acura for some years now and it performs flawless ly.
As others say, the Volvo is akin to marrying Paris Hilton; lots of expensive upkeep and unreliable performance.
I have bought Honda/Acura products for over 20 years . . . Accords, a TL, a CL and an MDX. All have been excellent. They have become the standard of the industry. Superb engineering and reliability. Get the RDX.
Thank you to all who weighed in. Your responses do not surprise me, frankly. I just needed to sway my husband away from the Volvo and you helped me do that 
If he uses the “Volvos are safe cars” argument, you can tell him that the other car companies have had time to catch up to Volvo’s reputation, and most meet, or beat, their reputation for safety.
Honda and Toyota have reputations for being reliable cars, though Toyota’s name has been drug through the mud with their recall notices in the past year or so.
Domestic vehicles have reputations for being unreliable pieces of scrap metal, but they’re changing their image. Ford I think has come out ahead of the other 2, but time will tell.