2023 Volvo XC40 Safety and Reliability

You won't find a bad Volvo XC40 safety review on the internet, and that's little surprise considering the brand's perennially strong ratings in this area. The Volvo XC40 attained a Top Safety Pick+ award from the IIHS for 2022, the agency's highest designation for safety. 2023 models scored almost perfectly in every test except the updated side-impact test, for which it registered an Acceptable score; we expect it to retain its Top Safety Pick+ rating. As for the Recharge, it attained perfect reviews for every crash test. The NHTSA mirrored these results with a perfect five-star overall safety rating for the gas-powered XC40; the agency has not tested the Recharge.

Those stellar safety scores are no surprise since this is a Volvo product. As standard, the XC40 comes with a suite of airbags that include a driver's knee airbag and curtain airbags. A rearview camera is expected, but the XC40 also comes with rear parking sensors, a lane-keeping aid, oncoming lane mitigation, forward-collision warning with automatic braking, road-sign information, hill-start assist, rain-sensing wipers, automatic LED headlights, and hill-descent control. Upgrading to the Plus adds LED front fog lamps with a cornering function and front parking sensors (in addition to those at the back). The Ultimate comes with a 360-degree camera, adaptive cruise control with stop & go, side parking sensors, and lane tracing. The humbler XC40 trims can be equipped with the Ultimate's driver assists at extra cost.

The 2023 Volvo XC40 SUV has an overall J.D. Power rating of 75 out of 100 in the US, and its specific quality/reliability score is just 70/100. According to the NHTSA, the XC40 was recalled just once in 2022 for a high-voltage system that could disconnect due to water intrusion, leading to a loss of drive power. This issue only affected the XC40 Recharge. At the time of writing, the 2023 XC40 has been recalled only once, for a diagnostic error causing a possible loss of ABS and stability control.

Every XC40 comes with a four-year/50,000-mile limited and powertrain warranty, which matches most other premium brands but doesn't surpass them. Complimentary scheduled maintenance is also covered for the first three years or 36,000 miles. For XC40 Recharge models, complimentary scheduled maintenance runs for 40,000 miles or four years. The battery on the Recharge is covered for eight years or 100 000 miles.