MOT pass rate · 2025 data
Citroen Xsara MOT pass rate
The Citroen Xsara passed 59.29% of its 19,396 initial MOT tests in 2025 — below the 77.3% average across all cars tested that year. That is 18 percentage points worse than average.
How the Citroen Xsara holds up with age
Every car fails the MOT more often as it gets older. What matters when you are buying is how steeply that happens for this particular model. These are the 2025 pass rates for the Citroen Xsara grouped by the vehicle's age at the time of the test.
| Age at test | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| 6–10 years | 2 | 100% |
| 11 years and over | 19,394 | 59.29% |
Why the Citroen Xsara fails its MOT
Across every Citroen Xsara that failed its 2025 MOT, the most common area of failure was lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment, accounting for 25.58% of all recorded failure items. These are the areas worth having checked before you buy, and worth budgeting for on an older example.
| Failure area | Share of failure items | Recorded items |
|---|---|---|
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 25.58% | 7,132 |
| Suspension | 19.08% | 5,319 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 14.55% | 4,057 |
| Brakes | 12.14% | 3,385 |
| Tyres | 7.42% | 2,070 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 7.2% | 2,008 |
How the Citroen Xsara compares
Ranked on pass rate, the Citroen Xsara sits 638th of 651 models in this data , and 17th of the 18 Citroen models covered . Citroen as a whole averaged 70.82%, so this model runs 11.5 points behind its own brand average.
What this means when buying a used Citroen Xsara
A pass rate is a population average, not a verdict on the specific car in front of you. The average Citroen Xsara came to its 2025 test at 103,415 miles and 19.1 years old. Most examples tested were petrol, though 40.12% were diesel.
The useful check is the individual car's own MOT record: how many times it has failed, what for, and whether advisories keep reappearing. A recurring advisory on corrosion, suspension or brakes tells you far more than a model-wide average, and a mileage that does not move consistently between tests is a warning in itself.
Check a specific Citroen Xsara
Run the registration through a free MOT history check to see that car's test results, advisories and recorded mileages. For the risks an MOT never covers — outstanding finance, insurance write-off records, stolen markers and ownership history — a full car history check brings them together in one £15 report.
Also useful: mileage check · write-off check · free car check
Other Citroen models
- Citroen C3 74.75% pass rate · 229,912 tests
- Citroen Berlingo 69.15% pass rate · 179,343 tests
- Citroen C4 68.83% pass rate · 166,149 tests
- Citroen C1 75.28% pass rate · 161,857 tests
- Citroen DS3 60.51% pass rate · 68,173 tests
- Citroen Dispatch 69.51% pass rate · 45,955 tests
Models with a similar pass rate
- Peugeot 207 60.19% pass rate
- Volkswagen FOX 59.95% pass rate
- Peugeot 307 58.27% pass rate
- Chevrolet Matiz 58.41% pass rate
- Chevrolet Aveo 58.34% pass rate
- Fiat Scudo 59.22% pass rate
Figures aggregated from the DVSA MOT Anonymised data set for 2025, class 4 initial tests only, contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Retests are excluded, so these are first-time pass rates.