Volvo S40 — reported problems

What owners report: issue areas

Owner complaints are classified by the system they concern: 1,348 classifications in all. One complaint can concern several systems, so these add up to more than the number of complaints.

• Brakes238 (17.7%)Official recall records for this system: 5, covering model years 2000–2007.
• Electrical system206 (15.3%)
• Engine138 (10.2%)
• Fuel system102 (7.6%)Official recall records for this system: 6, covering model years 2003–2006.
• Speed control & accelerator84 (6.2%)
• Air bags (restraint system)76 (5.6%)

Other / uncategorized: 44 classifications (3.3%) were not assigned to a specific system by the source. They are counted but not treated as an issue area.

These are counts of records held by CarFaultIQ, not a failure rate. More records can simply mean more vehicles were sold or more owners reported. No vehicles-in-service figure exists in this data, so no reliability or risk score can be derived from it.

What the records are about, by source

Each source is kept separate: owner complaints, recalls, manufacturer communications and investigations are different kinds of record and are never added together. All model years.

• Owner complaints (982 records, model years 2000–2011) are most frequently classified under: brakes, electrical system and engine.
• Manufacturer communications (2,405 records, model years 2000–2011) are most frequently classified under: equipment & accessories, electrical system and engine.

"Most frequently classified under" reports how the records are filed by the source. It is not a finding about causes, and a record can be filed under more than one system. Read the individual records

Mileage reported when the issue occurred

• 616reports included a mileage
• 77,100average of those mileages

This is the mileage owners recorded at the time they reported, not an expected failure mileage and not a prediction for any individual vehicle. The lowest and highest figures on record are not shown: they are unverified odometer entries that include zeros and implausibly high readings, so they would not describe a real range. A median is not shown either, because the stored figures are group totals and a median cannot be recovered from them.

Evidence by model year

Records held per model year. Select a year to narrow this page to it.

1. 2000 325 records for 2000 325
2. 2001 277 records for 2001 277
3. 2002 186 records for 2002 186
4. 2003 183 records for 2003 183
5. 2004 299 records for 2004 299
6. 2005 246 records for 2005 246
7. 2006 225 records for 2006 225
8. 2007 191 records for 2007 191
9. 2008 178 records for 2008 178
10. 2009 170 records for 2009 170
11. 2010 168 records for 2010 168
12. 2011 167 records for 2011 167

Counts are not adjusted for how many vehicles were sold in each year, so a taller year is not necessarily a worse year.

Reports mentioning outcomes

• 90mention a crash
• 24mention a fire
• 46mention an injury

These are counts of records whose report mentioned the outcome. They are not a severity rating and not a safety assessment of this vehicle.

Official records held

• Safety recalls NHTSA 41
• Manufacturer communications NHTSA 2,405
• Investigations NHTSA 5
• Transport Canada recalls Transport Canada 46
• Owner complaints NHTSA 982

Explore the underlying evidence records