For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo XC40 have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The BMW X3 doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Volvo XC40 are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The BMW X3 doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the XC40 and X3 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The XC40 Ultra has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The X3’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the XC40 are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The X3 doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the XC40. But it costs extra on the X3.
Both the XC40 and X3 have rear cross-traffic warning, but the XC40 has Braking Intervention (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The X3’s Cross Traffic Warning doesn’t automatically brake.
Both the XC40 and the X3 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning, driver alert monitors and available around view monitors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Volvo XC40 is safer than the BMW X3:
|
|
XC40 |
X3 |
|
|
Driver |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Neck Compression |
25 lbs. |
64 lbs. |
|
|
Passenger |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Chest Compression |
.5 inches |
.6 inches |
| Neck Injury Risk |
31% |
38% |
| Neck Compression |
66 lbs. |
72 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Volvo XC40 is safer than the BMW X3:
|
|
XC40 |
X3 |
|
|
Rear Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| HIC |
119 |
133 |
| Hip Force |
755 lbs. |
794 lbs. |
|
|
Into Pole |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| HIC |
237 |
281 |
| Spine Acceleration |
33 G’s |
43 G’s |
| Hip Force |
411 lbs. |
624 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the XC40 is 1.6% to 1.7% less likely to roll over than the X3.