My Volvo s40 has been a very good first car. One of the reasons we purchased the vehicle is the safety ratings, and since it survived an rear-ending I am super pleased by how safe it proved to be! It has about 123,000 miles on it currently and is far from feeling old, although we have had to fix the AC unit a couple of years ago (apparently this is a known issue with Volvos) and it has a bit of an oil leak that none of the mechanics that have worked on it can seem to fix. I get complimented on what a nice car I have daily, I am very satisfied with how it looks and drives! It gets about between 20-29 miles to the gallon, I feel in control of the vehicle while driving, the brakes are responsive and it handles easily but not overly-sensitively.