Volvo XC40 SUV - Reliability & safety

In our 2023 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, the XC40 finished in 61st place out of the top 75 cars – that’s a substantial fall on the previous year’s 23rd-place finish. Owners spoke highly of its practicality and interior quality, but were less impressed with it in terms of value for money. 

Volvo XC40 reliability

Volvo XC40 customer feedback in 2020 and 2021 was glowingly positive, suggesting the XC40 is great to live with, despite falling much further down in the 2022 and 2023 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey. Volvo as a brand finished in a respectable 13th place above Audi (30th), Mercedes (25th) and BMW (21st), although it was behind Jaguar in 10th place. Reliability was slightly worse than average with 27% of Volvo drivers reporting an issue in the first year.

Safety

The Volvo XC40 has been given five stars in independent Euro NCAP crash tests, with impressive scores across the board that make it the safest small SUV. A 97% score for adult occupant protection is certainly reassuring, along with a high 87% score for child occupants.

Perhaps the car's key safety technology is City Safety autonomous emergency braking, which can not only detect vehicles, but pedestrians, cyclists and even large animals, helping prevent collisions or at least lessen their severity. There are also systems to help keep the car on the road, and prevent it heading towards oncoming traffic, all fitted as standard.

Every XC40 also comes with Volvo On Call, a smartphone app and emergency assistance package that allows you to control some functions of the car remotely (like locking and unlocking), and can alert the emergency services if you're involved in a crash.