There are certainly compromises when choosing the XC40, it’s not cheap to run, isn’t the biggest car to fit all the family accoutrements, and has marmite styling. But, it did win a lot of awards for good reasons, it’s a very modern design, it has a great interior, it has powerful engines, and most importantly for lots of us, it’s really comfortable and safe to drive. The poor mpg was a known quantity, the figures are pretty much as I expected at 34.5mpg (just normal driving and comfort mode), and the seat issue seems to be confined to a bad batch of Inscription Pro models as my R Design Pro has extremely comfortable seats. Overall I think the XC40 has been a great choice for us, and I’m delighted with it!
I wouldn’t choose it if I were ordering today, thanks to the ridiculous jump in AP over the last quarter, and the availability of a much more reasonably priced Tiguan, but that doesn’t detract from the reasons why it’s a great car.
Finally, and to add to the mpg debate with a comparison, we also have an XC60 AWD T5 (same 2.0 engine but with 250hp) and it has averaged 31.7mpg over the 15000 miles we’ve run it. It took a while to break the 30mpg barrier but now it regularly gets 35’s on longer journeys (on the very rare occasions it gets one!).