We can't say there's any shock to this bit of news, but the Volvo S40 sedan and the Volvo V50 wagon have been discontinued for the 2012 model year. The V50 was even less of a shock as we'd reported back in January that the premium small wagon was sentenced to death but still awaiting the date.
"There is no justification for keeping a car with that low a volume," said Dan Johnston, spokesman for Volvo Cars of North America. "Americans haven't learned to love small cars."
Volvo sold 434 V50s and 2,146 S40s through May of 2011 while they sold 2,405 S60s in May alone.
tmanz says:
10:10 AM, 06/16/11
"Americans haven't learned to love small cars"
The nearest Volvo dealer is over an hour away and isn't in a great area to get in and out of combined with not so great reliability stories from owners and less than stellar reviews made us take second thought about buying an S40 after looking at one at an auto show several years ago.
stovt001 says:
10:28 AM, 06/16/11
That's too bad. I always thought the S40 was a pretty nice looking car. I'm always sad to see a wagon go, but we've known about Volvo's abandonment of that niche for a while now.
I like the styling of the C30 too, but when I sat in it nothing really clicked for me. The super-pushy Volvo rep who wouldn't leave me alone didn't help. C70 has never done anything for me.
ed124c says:
10:59 AM, 06/16/11
Americans are learning quite quickly how to love, or at least tolerate, small cars.
blueguydotcom says:
12:29 PM, 06/16/11
They sold so few because the car is:
1. Old
2. Outclassed
3. Expensive
4. Part of a dying manufacturer
5. Has no marketing support
6. Has no positive word of mouth
7. All of the above.
xprojected says:
12:46 PM, 06/16/11
With the S60 a hot item now, all they had to do was make a trickle-down 4/5 scale version, a-la Sonata/Elantra, but I'm guessing they lacked the money to do a proper overhaul (especially seeing that the current gen S40 is what, 8 years old with a 4-year old facelift?
ne1butu2 says:
02:22 PM, 06/16/11
The S40 not going away because Americans don't love small cars… that's completely ridiculous. The current S40 was a huge success for Volvo, but it isn't competitive and hasn't been for about three years. It's going away because Ford supplied the platform used on the previous European Focus and Mazda 3. Since Ford doesn't own Volvo, and the platform is no longer available, Geely doesn't have a replacement.
brn says:
06:19 PM, 06/16/11
"Americans haven't learned to love small cars."
Yea, blame the customer not the product. Perhaps, Americans haven't learned to love overpriced and unreliable small cars.
inlinesix says:
11:18 PM, 06/16/11
gotta go with brn and BGDC on this one.
billt9 says:
07:56 AM, 06/17/11
this looks at most nearly on par with the previous gen audi A4.
It's so yesteryear.
tmanz says:
12:37 PM, 06/17/11
"Yea, blame the customer not the product. Perhaps, Americans haven't learned to love overpriced and unreliable small cars."
Exactly, it is like saying "Americans haven't learned how to love recent Steven Seagal Movies.
It was about 3 years ago when we looked at the S40 and it really had very little that made it stand out substantially from the Mazda3 for the price and the 3 had better reliability, better dealer access (at least at that time, since then 3 Mazda dealers have closed) and that was 3 years ago.
jscion says:
09:39 AM, 06/18/11
Americans obviously DO love small cars because there are plenty of Chevrolet Cruzes, Honda Civics, VW Jetta's and Mini Coopers out there, so that's alot of crap! Volvo just doesn't have anything that's competitive in that market anymore. The C30 is cool and interesting but too expensive. The S40 and V50 are VERY out of date and never really hit the cool factor even at it's peak. Volvo needs new management, product designers that are creative with vision, and a serious jolt of new models if they want to sell cars.