What Do You Wish Your XC40 Had?

- Fully automatic climate control (auto fan speed!)
- Wireless Apple CarPlay
- Substantially longer front seat bottom cushions
- Seat cooling
- Ability to close sunroof after engine shut off
- Speakers in front doors, especially for bass
- Voice control that actually worked
- Better brakes
- Transmission tuned to avoid overly harsh downshifts when only moderate throttle increase is applied
- Pilot Assist that operates for longer than a few seconds at a time
- AC power plug

Leather seating and seat heaters in U.S. spec R-design

Don’t have one yet, but it would be very nice if the U.S. market XC allowed for rear seat heaters. It is an option in Europe. What gives? It gets cold in the U.S. too! Also I am in disbelief that it is not possible to order an R-design with a leather interior. You can even get a Momentum model with leather but not the R-design. Yet, in Europe you can order an R-design with leather if you want. Why not the U.S.? Same seat design, same factory. This makes no sense to me.

The European delivery Volvo website says you can special order your vehicle with options:

Custom ordering through Overseas Delivery
Another great advantage of our Overseas Delivery Program is the ability to customize your new Volvo with special options. You can build it with select colors, wheels, interiors, inlays and more. You can also add accessories that are only available in Europe. Please note that vehicle options, powertrains, engines and wheels are based on U.S. market specifications.

So what are the "special options"? I called Volvo to ask. Their reply? Nothing, absolutely nothing! (Ok a neck pillow) You can only order a vehicle as you can that would be shipped directly to the U.S. So that paragraph on their site is very misleading. I understand different power trains from what is offered is out of the question. But seating? Really? Very disappointing considering these options are installed in the same vehicle in the same factory.

My wish list

Just got my 2019 XC 40 T5 R-Design AWD. Love the car.

I have one top wish list and 2 additional.

Looking at the user guide on the TPMS, it mentioned on page 513 "Use an air pressure gauge and check the inflation pressure on all the tires, including the spare tire, at least once a month and before long trips. Volvo strongly recommends buying a reliable air pressure gauge"

So let me get this straight... I have an incredibly technologically advanced vehicle which almost can drive itself and has a TPMS system capable of monitoring when the tire pressures need attention... but I have to buy a $12 tire gauge?? Why can't the system just display a graphic of 4 tires (like on the TPMS screen) and simply display the PSI of each tire? Obviously the system knows in order to determine if the pressure needs correcting.

The two additional is a redesign of the shifter and central console. The human interface of the controls of this car is not always logical. For starters, the gear/transmission shifter it's horrible. It requires a two-step action. For example, to engage reverse or drive, one must move the gear selector twice. This is extremely annoying during parking maneuvers and is very frustrating. Of course the argument could be that I should use the automated parking assistance but the shifter is just very unnatural for me. While you can operate almost every control from the steering wheel and the voice recognition is a nice addition, the central control screen is extremely convoluted and requires a high degree of learning curve. Coming from Volvo, particularly because it sees itself as a safety brand, the central control screen is just unsafe because it is almost impossible to operate safely while driving. There are too many unintuitive multiple taps, swipes and scrolls necessary to navigate the system. In addition, the system is awfully slow to respond. For example, changing a driver profile can take over a minute to load. If there are two things requiring a redesign, it would be the shifter and the control screen. The goal obviously should be to reduce the distraction and the precious seconds’ loss with eyes off the road to do basic functions as changing cabin temperature and audio source.

As with most newer cars, when you stop, once the engine is warm, the XC 40 idles the engine completely down to a point that the engine is shut off (0 RPM). This system would cause an abrupt jerking when restarting. The SUV would lurch forward when starting up from a stop light. It takes a while getting used to but I found out that it is better to release the brakes and wait two second before applying acceleration to avoid the lurching. Aside from those, I just love the car!