75.1%
Volkswagen Golf
Volkswagen Golf vs Vauxhall Astra
Buying a used Volkswagen Golf or Vauxhall Astra? Compare their MOT pass rates, common problems, mileage and how they hold up as they get older.
Already found one of them? Check its finance, write-off, theft, mileage and keeper history with a £15 vehicle history report.
MOT pass rate head to head
Initial MOT tests in 2025, retests excluded. The UK average across all cars is 72.3%.
65.8%
Vauxhall Astra
9.3
percentage point gap in the Volkswagen Golf's favour
That is a wide gap by the standards of this data, and worth weighing. The figures come from 882,477 tests of the Volkswagen Golf and 584,206 of the Vauxhall Astra.
A pass rate is not a reliability score. It records whether cars met the roadworthiness standard on test day.
Which one holds up better with age?
A headline pass rate mixes three-year-old cars with fifteen-year-old ones. Split by age, you can see what each model does over time.
| Age at test | Golf | Astra |
|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 years | 89.5% | 84.9% |
| 6 to 10 years | 83.8% | 73.1% |
| 11 years and over | 64% | 59.7% |
Both models age at much the same rate, losing around 25.4 percentage points between the youngest and oldest groups. Neither has an advantage worth paying for on this measure.
What each one fails on
The areas testers recorded most often across every failed 2025 test for each model, as a share of recorded failure items.
Volkswagen Golf
Vauxhall Astra
The Volkswagen Golf fails most often on suspension, the Vauxhall Astra on lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment. Two different things to check on a viewing, and two different conversations to have with the seller. These are recorded failure categories, not faults every car has.
The specific items testers wrote down
One level deeper than the category: the individual defects recorded most often on each model.
Volkswagen Golf
- Coil spring fractured or broken
- Tread depth tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm
- Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak
Vauxhall Astra
- Coil spring fractured or broken
- Tread depth tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm
- Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick
What this comparison can't tell you
Everything above describes two models across the whole UK fleet. It says nothing about the one car in the advert. Two Golfs of the same year and mileage can be worth thousands apart because of finance, a write-off, a theft record or a clocked odometer, none of which appear in MOT data.
Check the car you are about to buy. One £15 report, instant results, backed by a £30,000 data guarantee.
- Outstanding finance
- Write-off records
- Stolen markers
- Mileage history
- Previous keepers
Read more on each car
Other comparisons with these cars
Volkswagen Golf vs Vauxhall Astra FAQs
Is the Volkswagen Golf or the Vauxhall Astra more likely to pass its MOT?
The Volkswagen Golf passed 75.1% of its initial MOT tests in the DVSA 2025 data against 65.8% for the Vauxhall Astra, a gap of 9.3 percentage points. That is a fleet-wide average, not a prediction about the specific car you are looking at.
Does a higher MOT pass rate mean a more reliable car?
No. An MOT records whether a vehicle met the roadworthiness standard on the day it was tested. It does not test the engine, clutch or gearbox, and it does not measure how often a car breaks down. Pass rates are useful for comparing how two models are holding up across the whole UK fleet, and nothing more than that.
Which is cheaper to keep on the road, the Volkswagen Golf or the Vauxhall Astra?
This data does not price servicing or repairs, so it cannot answer that directly. What it does show is what each model most often fails on, which is a fair guide to where the money goes. The Volkswagen Golf fails most often on suspension. The Vauxhall Astra fails most often on lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment.
How do I check the actual Volkswagen Golf I have found?
Enter its registration. A Carpeep car history check reports outstanding finance, insurance write-off markers, stolen markers, the mileage recorded at every MOT, previous keepers, tax and MOT status, import and export markers and scrapped status in one £15 report. None of that appears in model-level MOT statistics.
MOT figures are aggregated from the DVSA MOT Anonymised data set for 2025 (class 4 initial tests, retests excluded), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. MOT results describe roadworthiness at test, not mechanical reliability.