2005 Volvo S40 problems
Owners have filed 91 complaints with NHTSA about the 2005 Volvo S40. Fuel system is the most reported problem area, at 23% of complaints. After that come electrical system (21%) and engine (18%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 91 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Fuel system 23% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 2 and 0
- Injuries and deaths
- 1 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 73,000 miles 78 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 4 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 9 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 10 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 19 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 16 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 5 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 2 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 3 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 5 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 3 |
| 200k+ miles | 2 |
What the data shows
Among the 78 complaints that report mileage, the typical (median) problem appeared at about 73,000 miles. For fuel system specifically, the median reported mileage is about 84,000 miles (20 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 2 complaints mention a crash; 1 injury reported. Its complaints are less severe on average than those of 91% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2005 ranks 5th most-complained-about out of 8 model years of the Volvo S40 with enough data (34 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 3 safety recall campaigns.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
On november 14, 2007, my daughter, had a accident with my car, a 2005 volvo s.40, 24.1. She hit a medium size tree head on. The airbags did not deployed.
November 15, 2005 my volvo s40's parking brake failed to work properly. After parking my car and leaving the garage the brake "slipped" and rolled out of the spot hitting another car. My car had 2,899 miles on it. When returning to my car that night I found that my parking brake had "slipped" and my volvo had drifted down the ramp of my parking garage and struck another car.
The s-40 was on the highway and the message came on stating engine failure. I pulled over in the breakdown lane and shut the car off. I restarted the car and was able to drive home. I made an appointment with the dealer to look into the problem which occurred at that time, today I experienced the same and now the CD does not work properly. I made an appointment to bring the s 40 t5 in for service to check the problem again.
I was in the intersection ready to make a turn when the car suddenly stalled all the dash display lights went out all gauges stopped working and the windshield wipers would not go off when I tried to restart the car the dash suddenly displayed brake failure pull over safely, and immobilizer check manual and the car would not start it had to be pushed across the intersection and it has been sitting in a parking lot since then waiting to be towed this has happened on 3 different occasions since I bought the vehicle…
My car was making a pumping noise from the rear of the car and the check engine light would come on. I took it to a local mechanic and they informed me of the pem recall/extended warranty. I took the car to the volvo dealership to have repaired and they said the pem was not the problem and that it was a fuel pressure sensor and possibly the fuel pump itself. I declined the repair and exactly 2 weeks later the car failed to start. I had it towed to my local mechanic since I live 70 miles from the volvo dealership.