MOT pass rate · 2025 data
Volvo V40 MOT pass rate
The Volvo V40 passed 75.14% of its 97,256 initial MOT tests in 2025 — below the 77.3% average across all cars tested that year. That is 2.2 percentage points worse than average.
How the Volvo V40 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 Volvo V40 grouped by the vehicle's age at the time of the test.
| Age at test | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| 3–5 years | 3 | 100% |
| 6–10 years | 65,376 | 77.85% |
| 11 years and over | 31,872 | 69.56% |
The Volvo V40 drops 30.4 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 Volvo V40 fails its MOT
Across every Volvo V40 that failed its 2025 MOT, the most common area of failure was suspension, accounting for 23.96% 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 | 23.96% | 11,535 |
| Tyres | 21.77% | 10,480 |
| Brakes | 19.9% | 9,579 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 13.44% | 6,468 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 6.77% | 3,261 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 6.18% | 2,976 |
How the Volvo V40 compares
Ranked on pass rate, the Volvo V40 sits 428th of 651 models in this data , and 9th of the 17 Volvo models covered . Volvo as a whole averaged 78.37%, so this model runs 3.2 points behind its own brand average.
What this means when buying a used Volvo V40
A pass rate is a population average, not a verdict on the specific car in front of you. The average Volvo V40 came to its 2025 test at 78,395 miles and 9.6 years old. Most examples tested 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 Volvo V40
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 Volvo models
- Volvo XC60 82.51% pass rate · 108,847 tests
- Volvo XC40 91.46% pass rate · 84,677 tests
- Volvo XC90 79.29% pass rate · 70,524 tests
- Volvo V70 70.32% pass rate · 37,976 tests
- Volvo V60 79.65% pass rate · 35,045 tests
- Volvo V50 61.01% pass rate · 26,134 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
- Honda Civic 74.32% pass rate
- Vauxhall Mokka 74.37% pass rate
- Citroen C3 74.75% 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.