Road Test: Volvo V40 T5 Elite Geartronic

What the Volvo V40 does is democratise active safety away from the Germans and their big luxury cars. We approve.  

The Volvo V40 is not a station wagon, Volvo vehemently assures us, but it is a bigger than normal hatchback based on sturdy Ford Focus underpinnings, and that kind of fits with the way the Swedes do things, now doesn’t it? Its predecessor, the Volvo C30, was a brilliant car; one of our favourites in its class in fact, except it was only a coupe and that kept its mainstream appeal somewhat limited. When it comes to the new Volvo V40 though; straight away it appears to be the type of car one can form an impressionable attachment with well before it shows you the full contours of its personality. In a world that’s obsessed with delivering a ‘feel good moment’ every few minutes, I don’t know it’s bizarre, but the Volvo V40 feels like it operates above it all, like it’s better than it all. The Volvo V40 is proud, virtuous, sensible, creative, attractive, intelligent, elegant and more than anything, safe.

This new Volvo V40, in spite of itself, and its gutsy range of turbo petrol engines and economical diesel engines; and its heart-warming styling, may look like standard fair in the modern hatchback department but it really offers a lot more technology and wellbeing than you can ever imagine. Volvo’s latest marketing schtick is the somewhat facile: “designed around you,” tag line, but my goodness does it ring true when you drive around in one for a few days. Things any good Volvo can usually pat itself on the back for include: feeling genuinely big and solid on the road; having typically cosseting seats; and a simple and un-intimidating interior. And these wholesome Volvo staples are still in attendance despite the Volvo V40’s best efforts to load the new hatchback with more technology than a Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

I was not expecting the blizzard of technology I was greeted with in my Volvo V40 T5 Elite that was optioned with adaptive cruise control, city safety, et al. It all seemed very un-Volvo-ish initially, but it comes together beautifully in this very classy hatchback. Having said that, where I think the Volvo V40 loses its way is with the five derivatives to choose from, and more optional extras than I can remember offered on any Volvo before. The reason a lot of people bought a Volvo in the past was because it was in a word, ‘easy,’ and the car they ended up with was in a word, ‘inoffensive.’ This appears to no longer be the case. I’m afraid if you want to buy a Volvo V40 now, you’re going to need to know a little bit about cars and what you want: there is the T3 (110 kW), T4 (132 kW), T5 (187 kW), D2 (84 kW) and D3 (110 kW). Yes, throwing a dart at the Volvo brochure would be easier, like I said, and if this were a Gordon Ramsay show he’d say the menu needed to be paired down.

Thankfully the T5 engine I had in my test car needed little introduction.  It comes with a turbo, five-cylinders, Volvo’s Geartronic automatic transmission and front wheel drive. It’s bizarre to me that Ford won’t even sell you this engine in the Focus ST anymore but you can still get hold of it in a safe and sensible Volvo. The asking price is R 392 500, which may seem like a lot but with it comes with a thrumming 187 kW and 360 Nm of torque that’ll accelerate to 100 km/h in 6.5 seconds and it is plenty rapid enough. The claimed average consumption of 7.9 L/100km is a little high but thanks to auto stop/start we were able to get it fairly close to that figure with a bit of cautious driving.

The only inherent problems I could find with my V40 test car were that the steering wheel was too big and the steering response itself totally remote. The majority of the new dials, displays and buttons are very attractive but definitely need a tutorial before your average Volvo driver will be able to figure them out. The fascia has undergone several changes too, one of which makes the centre display screen tiny and recessed deep into the dash. And the once elegant and quirky ‘floating console’ has now gotten fatter and wider, rendering it little more than a novelty. It’s basically a place to lose things behind now.

Driving wise, the V40 experience is dominated by the safety gizmos. I expected it to succeed admirably on the safety front, as any Volvo should, but this V40 is just unbelievable. I have never felt as safe in a car as I did in the Volvo V40. My car had adaptive cruise control so it basically drove me around every day; blind spot assistance so it basically had eyes on the back and sides of its head; lane keeping assistance so it basically had training wheels; a light on the windshield that warned me if I was a little too close to the car in front; auto high beam so it basically saw for me; city safety to bring me to a complete stop if I didn’t react quickly enough on the brakes (thankfully not tested); and a pedestrian airbag should that fail and I tangled with a pedestrian or cyclist. All these systems are calibrated brilliantly as well. Genuinely, they work better than they work on any other car big German E-Class, S-Class, 5-Series, 7-Series, etc. And they seem more impressive somehow because they’re to be found on what is a fairly inexpensive, accessible vehicle.

More than all that; for this virtuous Volvo, it benefits from total refinement in almost every sphere possible in motoring. On the whole, I like the Volvo V40 a lot; it’s far more of a laugh than I was expecting; far more refined than I was expecting and even in the realm of safety, far more impressive than even their own marketing claims.

What we like…

• Stunning safety equipment.
• Good acceleration from the five-cylinder engine.
• Comfort, refinement and detailed touches.
• Good looks and fond personality.

What we would like…

• The five-cylinder to be a tad less thirsty, but then again there are other derivatives.
• Better steering response.

Comments

comments