Car Review: Volvo XC40 D3 – it’s all there in black and white

Pretty cool styling, a classy cabin and every bit as good as its competitors – but its price leaves the XC40 vulnerable to the discounted brands, reckons Sean O’Grady

It goes perfectly well, and I never felt short of performance (Pictures by Sean O’Grady/The Independent)

“Bastards” I muttered when first I glimpsed my Volvo XC40 press car. “Sods”.

I really wasn’t ready for it, this Volvo. It was black – OK – but with a white roof, white door mirrors, and, may god have mercy on their souls, white alloy wheels. It was a funster Volvo, an abomination. It was like a 1980s Suzuki SJ40 Jeep, the ones legendarily always driven by Essex girls in white stilettos (genuine retro references there, exempt from current woke legislation). It was like a special edition Volvo themed on the musical Chess, featuring the compositions of Tim Rice and Abba boys Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, appropriately enough.

You remember Chess – “I Know Him So Well”? “One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble”? One day in the XC40 left me tumbling too. Surely the Volvo media team couldn’t do this to me? The truth was there. In black and white. They could and they did. More of a British Racing Green bloke myself, you see.

(The Independent)

The starkly contrasting colour scheme worked much better in the cabin. What looked and felt to be luscious white ether seats were in fact officially described as “textile”, which I think means synthetic. Still, they were very supple and comfortable, with an adjustable squab too, which is enough, for me, to turn a mediocre car into something great. It means they’ve put some sort of thought into making the car fit for humans with unusually proportioned legs.

Ergonomics was always a Volvo strong point, and that tradition seemingly endures, with clear controls everywhere. The black carpeting was fine, and the white fuzzy felt they put in the door liners didn’t look as cheap as it should have done, given that it is an obvious cost saving measure, in place of proper interior door trim and door-mounted audio speakers.

(The Independent)

As usual the upright, portrait-format touchscreen worked well and intuitively, one of the better examples of the type. There’s some sort of aluminium effect trim on the dash, one of a range of tasteful finishes. The cabin of a Volvo is just that bit classier than most of the competition and it looks pretty cool.

So is the styling, and it improves with familiarity.

(The Independent)

Any road, it’s a car though, not a living room. How does it go? Volvo has made a few detail improvements to its successful XC40 – you do see plenty of them around – and I took the opportunity to try one of the more budget models, the cheapest trim as fitted to the lowliest diesel engine model, the D3.

The spec

Volvo XC40 D3 Momentum Pro

Price: £35,710 (as tested, range starts at £28,965
Engine: 2 litre 4-cylinder diesel; 8-speed auto 
Power output (hp@rpm): 150@3,750
Top speed (mph): 124
0 to 60 (secs): 10.2 
Fuel economy (mpg): 44.8 
CO2 emissions (g/km): 131 

It’s got most of the kit that buyers demand these days, but I’m getting lazy and a little entitled, so I missed the adaptive cruise control feature (optional extra).

It goes perfectly well, and I never felt short of performance. It’s not the fastest mover on paper, and it doesn’t feel all that sprightly in real life, so to speak, even in its “dynamic” mode, but it doesn’t really matter that much. In that respect, and many others, it is not worse than any of its many rivals, and better than most. The real challenge comes from the discount brands such as Dacia, MG and SsangYong, where you can get about 80 per cent of the capability and features you’d get from a Volvo XC40 or Audi Q3, say, but at about one third the cost.

The petrol and diesel engine range is excellent for power and economy, and there’s a hybrid electric/petrol XC40 on the way. Even so, what Volvo really needs is a fully electric range of products, but that’s another story.

(The Independent)

Apart from that the only criticisms I had were the fiddly stubby little automatic gear control, and the tailgate, which was a bit too high and heavy for a wimp like me to deal with. But nothing like as challenging as that outrageous colour scheme.