Volvo S40 owners have reported a total of 687 problems for their cars built in the 12 model years listed in the chart below. The chart shows the number of problems reported across all service years for each given model year of the Volvo S40. The 2000 Volvo S40 cars have the most problems reported (165 problems).
The following chart shows the 25 most common problems for Volvo S40 cars. The number one most common problem is related to the vehicle's service brakes, hydraulic (122 problems). The second most common problem is related to the vehicle's electrical system (104 problems).
It would not be fair to compare the Volvo S40 of an older model year to newer model years since older vehicles have been in service longer and thus are expected to have more problems. In order to compare the reliability across S40 model years, we use the PPMY index which is defined as the problems reported per thousand vehicles per Year. A smaller PPMY index indicates greater reliability of the given model year cars.
PPMY = P / S / Y * 1000,
where P = total problems reported during the life of a Volvo S40 model year; S = total units sold of the model year; Y = years since the debut of the model year (the age of the vehicle).
The results are shown in Table 3.
Another way to measure the reliability across the model years of the Volvo S40 is to use the total number of problems reported during the vehicle's first year in service, as shown in the Table 4.
| Model Year | Problems Reported |
|---|---|
| 2010 S40 | |
| 2009 S40 | |
| 2007 S40 | |
| 2006 S40 | |
| 2005 S40 | |
| 2004 S40 | |
| 2003 S40 | |
| 2002 S40 | |
| 2001 S40 | |
| 2000 S40 |