Let you daughter pick out the color. But is there a reason for the S40 other than cheap? Visibility is a real problem in the S40 and I would not consider it for my daughter. The S60, yes.
Around here, S70s are starting to approach $5K status and that is a pretty good buy. Gobbs of safety and pretty good milage.

The hardest part of learning to drive these days is knowing where the corners of the car are. But there are no more front fenders visible and it is a guess as to where the front of the car is. That is one of the reasons the 240 is still so popular.

Klaus
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Please answer, we need to know if the advice is good or bad. The 164 has a new home, all I am left with are 2 turbos :)

If you scan the insurance claims data numbers at IIHS, http://www.iihs.org/ the S40 isn't amazingly safe, either. (It's small.) It's not actually bad, it's just not amazing. It has the usual disadvantage of a Volvo in that it's not the best for reliability and costs an arm and a leg to fix.

CR actually recommended the '00 S70 and '02 S60 as of this past April. They are both larger.

As a "first car" I might gravitate towards something that's very large and very cheap.

-BTC

'98 V70 T5 5-speed, 173k mi, heated velour cloth comfy chairs, factory HD suspension, Bilstein HD, front IPD stabilizer bar, Volvo strut tower brace and skidplate, XC grill, C70 jewel E-Codes, V-1, Lidatek, IPD stuff, JB Weld, Original Duck tape, zip-ties, two '06 Honda license plate nut impressions in back bumper (gift from daughter), Mobil-1 since new.

"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair." - Douglas Noel Adams (1952 - 2001)