Volvo XC60 review - Reliability & safety

The Volvo XC60 took class honours when tested by Euro NCAP back in 2017, thanks to Volvo’s safety know-how and innovative technology. Volvo has a reasonable track record for customer satisfaction, although when it comes to reliability specifically, it falters somewhat.

Volvo XC60 reliability

The latest XC60 came 69th out of the top 75 models in our 2022 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, but the model hasn’t featured since. Owners were impressed with its safety features and smooth engines, but infotainment took a hammering – the relatively recent switch to Google software should improve things here. Reliability was also a concern, with 36% of owners telling us they’d encountered an issue. 

In our most recent 2024 Driver Power brand customer satisfaction survey, Volvo unfortunately fell down the rankings to 16th place from 13th in the previous year and eighth the year before that. That puts it behind rivals Land Rover (10th) Lexus (12th) and BMW (14th) but ahead of Mercedes (25th) and Audi (27th). Reliability is slightly worse than average, with 26% of Volvo owners reporting an issue with their car in the first year. That’s a pretty high figure, but we’d expect most of these issues are fairly minor gremlins rather than catastrophic failures.

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Safety

Volvo led the pack as far as safety is concerned when the XC60 launched. The XC60's five-star Euro NCAP crash-test result was almost guaranteed, but its class-leading 98% score for adult occupant protection still impresses. However, due to this crash-test taking place in 2017, it’s now officially expired according to Euro NCAP, so can’t be compared to more recent results.

Rudimentary features like airbags are just the beginning of a long list of safety kit, which includes autonomous emergency braking and a new system called ‘Steer Assist’, designed to avoid obstacles. ‘Oncoming Lane Mitigation’ will attempt to mitigate head-on collisions and avoid accidents during motorway lane changes. The Driver Assist pack with ‘Pilot Assist’ is included from the Plus trim upwards. This brings semi-autonomous capabilities and can effectively drive the XC60 in its lane on the motorway at speeds of up to 80mph. It's a useful feature in heavy traffic and on longer journeys, as it can help reduce fatigue, but we haven't found it adept enough to take over driving duties at higher speeds.

For the 2021 facelift, there was also the addition of a new rear auto braking system, designed to help avoid dings where the driver inadvertently reverses into a hidden bollard or parked car. As with most cars, the XC60 will emit audible warning signals if you stray slightly over the speed limit, but while in some you can easily tailor these or turn them off, it’s not so easy in the Volvo. From late 2024 a system called ‘Intelligent Speed Assist’ was introduced, with alerts and an ‘Adaptive pedal response’ that acts a bit like a speed limiter to help keep your speed within the limits unless you press harder on the pedal to accelerate temporarily.