Thinking of a XC40, Know little about cars, never owned a Volvo, advice required.

[K4E]

Good afternoon,

After some advice as I am kind of lost in the woods at the moment looking for a new car. I know nothing much about cars really and I am not after performance, I like style over substance in a car personally. Always hear Volvos are build quite well, my uncle had an estate he owned for 15 years of hassle free motoring.

My main requirement is decent MPG as I drive about 20,000 miles a year currently in a 3 series BMW which is 12 years old and is about ready for change. I also would like some fairly modernish tech as well but nothing too fancy, cruise control, apple car play, maybe heated seats/wheel if I could push for it.

During my search I was looking for something that rides a bit higher but does not dominate the road like a big SUV and I came across the the XC40.

I am a bit lost as i thought id find a good chunk of diesel cars but it seems they was only produced for a short range of time? Not many about compared to the petrol counter parts. Are the petrol engines efficient?

I have a budget of about £20-22k and don't really want anything older than 4 years and the lower the mileage the better given what I will be putting on it. Is there any combination of trim/engine I should be going for given what I am after, MPG being the main one. When I go on the volvo website looking at the new models it seems its all electric and hybrid and the trims all have different names compared to the models from a few years ago.

Any help would be appreciated

[clockworks]

I have a 2021 T5 Recharge, which is a plug-in hybrid that will do around 25 miles on the battery, and has a 1.5 litre petrol engine.
Most of my journeys are less than 20 miles, so easily done on electric power at less than 4p a mile.

When running just on the petrol engine (battery already drained, or held in reserve for later use), it still does welk over 40mpg.

I had a 54 mile round trip to do yesterday, so I purposely ran it in petrol mode for the first leg, just to see what mpg I managed. Trip computer never dropped below 52mpg average. I left it in hybrid mode for the second and third legs of the trip, arriving home with 1 mile battery range remaining.

I recharged overnight, and measured how much electricity was put back in to fully charge the battery.

A bit of maths, and the car averaged 85mpg and used 8.5 kwh of electricity. True fuel consumption of just over 50mpg when running on petrol. When running on battery, it's the equivalent cost to getting 180mpg on petrol.

I'm impressed with getting around 50mpg on petrol in a reasonably large and heavy car. That's better than I managed from my Citroen C3 Aircross 1.2 petrol, and not much worse than my Kia Picanto.

For comparison, the Kia Sportage 2 litre diesel I had a few years ago did around 45mpg. Pretty much the same size an an XC40.

It's quite remarkable how good some of these modern petrol engines are, so I wouldn't worry too much about not having a diesel unless all your mileage is on the motorway - the place where modern diesels really shine. Around town, or normal A roads, a modern petrol is generally better.

Plug-in hybrid suits my usage, but may not suit yours.

[K4E]

Thanks for the reply.

Of my 20k miles most of it 80% is motorway so I do need something fairly efficient.

I also don't have anywhere to charge an electric motor so that is pretty much out of the equation for me.

[m@rk]

Thanks for the reply.

Of my 20k miles most of it 80% is motorway so I do need something fairly efficient.

I also don't have anywhere to charge an electric motor so that is pretty much out of the equation for me.

I've had the T5 PHEV for 3 years and like you do high motorway miles (it's a company car)

Whilst it has been an awesome and ultra reliable car, economy is not its strongest point (see my real world stats in my signature). Sure I can go shopping on a Saturday and use no fuel at all but that long weekly round trip to somewhere on the M3 or M4 (I live in Nottinghamshire) makes me grateful I am not paying for my own fuel.

Of course one problem you will face is that most manufacturers have dropped diesel all together in the move towards electrification and Volvo are leading this change.

[eugen61]

Same car will return different MPG depending on driving style. If MPG is your main concern check the official WLTP database for consistent and comparable figures among different engines or cars. https://carfueldata.vehicle-certificati ... -cars.aspx

Look for Volvo XC40 with engines T3, T4 (turbo petrol); D3, D4 (turbo diesel); B3, B4 (mild-hybrid petrol).

[Chris John]

First thing I saw in your post was decent MPG
In that case I’d get a different car

[JFDIT]

I'd agree with Chris John if your priority is MPG.

[Stovo]

Agree. Whilst the XC40 has an abundance of strengths MPG is not one of them.

[Den48]

Hi
Agree with the last two posts regarding mpg and diesel, l would be looking at an alternative, could I suggest that you check out mk2 vw Tiguan similar size and plenty of diesel options about. I have driven 2 tiguans in the past a mk1 and mk2 both with no problems, the mk2 car is a big improvement over the mk1 in terms of style.

[JFDIT]

Clearly if you need good MPG don't buy something heavy with the aerodynamics of a brick...