MOT pass rate · 2025 data
Subaru Forester MOT pass rate
The Subaru Forester passed 75.62% of its 14,604 initial MOT tests in 2025 — below the 77.3% average across all cars tested that year. That is 1.7 percentage points worse than average.
How the Subaru Forester 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 Subaru Forester grouped by the vehicle's age at the time of the test.
| Age at test | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| 3–5 years | 906 | 91.17% |
| 6–10 years | 5,071 | 82.88% |
| 11 years and over | 8,606 | 69.68% |
The Subaru Forester drops 21.5 percentage points between its early years and the 11-plus bracket, which is a steep decline. On an older example, the MOT history is worth reading closely before you buy.
Why the Subaru Forester fails its MOT
Across every Subaru Forester that failed its 2025 MOT, the most common area of failure was suspension, accounting for 34.68% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Suspension | 34.68% | 3,703 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 19.98% | 2,133 |
| Brakes | 12.72% | 1,358 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 8.77% | 936 |
| Tyres | 6.73% | 719 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 6.7% | 715 |
How the Subaru Forester compares
Ranked on pass rate, the Subaru Forester sits 416th of 651 models in this data , and 5th of the 6 Subaru models covered . Subaru as a whole averaged 78.62%, so this model runs 3 points behind its own brand average.
What this means when buying a used Subaru Forester
A pass rate is a population average, not a verdict on the specific car in front of you. The average Subaru Forester came to its 2025 test at 90,932 miles and 13.1 years old. Most examples tested were petrol, though 25.77% 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 Subaru Forester
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 Subaru models
- Subaru Impreza 79.62% pass rate · 16,656 tests
- Subaru Outback 79.16% pass rate · 6,823 tests
- Subaru XV 83.94% pass rate · 6,676 tests
- Subaru Legacy 71.37% pass rate · 4,554 tests
- Subaru WRX 91.21% pass rate · 1,650 tests
Models with a similar pass rate
- Ford Focus 74.62% pass rate
- Ford Transit 74.63% pass rate
- Nissan Juke 74.48% pass rate
- Citroen C3 74.75% pass rate
- Skoda Fabia 75.71% pass rate
- Volkswagen Passat 75.9% 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.