Cars

Roadshow's long-term Volvo XC40 after three months

Our 2019 Volvo XC40 has a lot going for it, but some of its shortfalls are hard to live with.

Manuel Carrillo III

A Porsche 911 S brought Manuel Carrillo III home from the hospital after he was born, so it's no surprise his lifelong trajectory has centered on cars, leading him to a robust career creating rich automotive media for publications prior to joining CNET.

The Southern California native briefly lived in Sydney, and is proud to have developed a barely passable Aussie accent. He also serves on the board of directors of the Motor Press Guild. When not reviewing cars or nerding out on OEM premium audio, you can find manual-labor-averse Manuel doing his best to convince his closest friends to fix the very Porsche that delivered him home.

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Manuel Carrillo III

May 18, 2019 5:00 a.m. PT

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We're three months and 4,000 miles into our year-long test of the 2019 Volvo XC40.

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Several of my coworkers have no shortage of nice things to say about this subcompact SUV.

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I, however, have a few gripes with our long-termer.

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I find these seats to be shockingly uncomfortable.

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The bolsters do a poor job of holding me in, while also creating pressure points.

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After more than 100 miles of sustained driving, the seat bottoms become painful for me.

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Not long after the seat bottoms start to annoy me, the driver's door arm rest started to irritate my left elbow.

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The XC40 is also jerky when accelerating from a standstill.

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That jerkiness is only exacerbated by a clunky stop-start system. After only a day of dealing with it, I switched the system off.

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I have more gripes about the XC40 and plenty of praise points, too, which you can read about in my long-term update. Click or scroll further for more photos of Roadshow's 2019 Volvo XC40 long-termer.