Pass rate
74.1%
Below average — 1.0 pts ahead of the 73.1% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 205 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £37–£96
2008 MINI COOPER D MOT pass rate
- 2008
- typical 113,330 mi
Most common fault
Suspension
26.0% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Which year to buy
- Best 2014 83.0% pass
- Avoid 2007 69.2% pass
Across the 8 years on record, a spread of 13.8 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 67.3%
- Typical mileage
- 113k mi
The 2008 MINI COOPER D MOT pass rate is 74.1% of its MOT tests — 1.0 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 26.0% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how MINI COOPER D does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Lamps & electrics: 1.4× the national share
Lamps & electrics make up 17.3% of everything recorded on the 2008 MINI Cooper D, against 12.2% nationally — 5.1 points above. Suspension is still the single largest share at 26.0%, but at 21.0% nationally that one is ordinary. Walk round the car with the lights on before the test: bulbs, indicators and number-plate lamps are the cheapest failures to prevent and among the most common.
- Failures here tend to be cheap ones. 58% of the repairs this model fails on cost under £30 in parts. The pass rate matters less than what a bad afternoon at the test centre actually costs you.
- Based on a small sample. 205 tests back this page. That is enough to publish and to index, not enough to treat the decimal places as precise — read the pattern, not the second digit.
Written from this page's own figures: fault shares against the national composition, the like-for-like pass rate, and the priced repair list. How these are worked out
Watching a MINI COOPER D? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2008 MINI COOPER D compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 73.1%, so this figure is 1.0 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 67.3%. The median 2008 MINI COOPER D in this dataset had covered 113,330 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 78.0% of the time, April–September 71.1%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources", noted on 7.80% of tests.
- 205 recorded tests behind this page.
- 74.1% overall pass rate, 67.3% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the MINI COOPER D, the average is 80.7% — best year 2014 (83.0%), worst 2007 (69.2%).
Figures count every completed test on this vehicle-year in the dataset, including retests. See methodology for the exact definition.
This page's data
- Tests analysed
- 205
- Typical mileage (median)
- 113,330 mi
- Make and model
- MINI COOPER D
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Number Plate Lamp
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the COOPER D MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 65% so small gaps stay visible.
Regional pass rates for the COOPER D
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South West | 34 | 79.4% |
| South East | 32 | 75.0% |
| East of England | 27 | 70.4% |
| North West | 24 | 70.8% |
| Scotland | 19 | 63.2% |
| West Midlands | 16 | 75.0% |
| Yorkshire | 15 | 80.0% |
Regions come from the postcode area recorded at the test station. Areas on region borders are assigned to the region with the majority of their population.
What fails a 2008 COOPER D
Everything a tester recorded on this vehicle, grouped into the inspection sections that produced it. The notch on each bar is the national share, so you can see at a glance whether this car is unusual or just ordinary.
A test can record several items, so these percentages do not add up to 100%. The exact strings, with prices, are in the full DVSA record at the bottom of this page.
Before your test
Three checks worth doing on a 2008 COOPER D
These are not generic tips — they are the faults recorded most often on this exact model, rewritten as things you can check yourself. All three take about ten minutes and cost nothing.
-
Check the lights 7.8% of tests
“registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources”
Switch everything on and walk round the car: both headlamps on dip and main, every indicator, both brake lights, reverse, fog and the two number-plate lamps. A bulb is a few pounds and a five-minute job.
-
Check the windscreen 7.3% of tests
“windscreen damaged”
Check the driver’s side of the screen within the swept area for chips and cracks; anything larger than 10mm in the driver’s central view is a fail. Most chips can be resin-repaired for far less than a new screen.
-
Check corrosion 2.4% of tests
“sub-frame corroded and seriously weakened”
Look under the sills, around the jacking points and where the suspension mounts meet the body. Flaking, holed or crumbly metal fails; a brown stain on sound metal does not.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
What it costs to get a 2008 COOPER D through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £37–£96 — and 58% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £37–£96
- Cheapest common item: stop lamp with a multiple light source up to…
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: sub-frame corroded
- £180–£450
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 70%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 58%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 205 MOT tests on this vehicle. They exclude diagnostics, retest fees and garage labour where the part is a DIY fit, and they are not figures from the DVSA dataset. Older and higher-mileage examples cost more than the average. How these estimates are built → · All MOT repair costs → · Cheapest cars to put through a test →
Every year of the COOPER D, side by side
8 model years on record, from 2007 to 2014. Across them the pass rate runs from 69.2% to 83.0% — a spread of 13.8 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2007 69.2% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2008 74.1%registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2009 74.0% position lamp not working
- 2010 76.0% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2011 78.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2012 81.1% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2013 81.9% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2014 83.0% windscreen damaged but not…
Colour is the pass rate on a fixed scale, so a block means the same thing on any model. Each year links to its own page with the full fault breakdown.
Compare the 2008 MINI COOPER D with another year
The raw pass rate mostly measures age. The year comparison adds the like-for-like figure, the mileage bands and the repair bill.
Other 2008 cars with a similar record
- Audi A3 74.1%
- Volvo XC90 74.1%
- Mercedes-Benz A-Class 74.2%
- SEAT Leon 74.2%
- Mercedes-Benz Vito 73.9%
- Toyota Rav-4 74.3%
Closest pass rates among 2008 cars with at least 2,000 tests, so a small sample cannot flatter itself into the list. See the full rankings: best and worst MOT pass rates.
The full DVSA record for the 2008 MINI COOPER D 10 failure items · 6 advisories · 10 inspection categories · mileage brackets · all of it in the page, none of it above the fold
Every inspection category
Shares of the 513 individual items recorded on this vehicle, and the same share across all cars nationally. A single test can record several items, so a row is not a percentage of tests.
| Category | Items | This car | Nationally | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suspension | 135 | 26.00% | 20.98% | +5.02 |
| Brakes | 123 | 23.70% | 20.89% | +2.81 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 90 | 17.30% | 12.21% | +5.09 |
| Tyres | 86 | 16.50% | 19.76% | −3.26 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 30 | 5.80% | 5.52% | +0.28 |
| Visibility | 23 | 4.40% | 4.97% | −0.57 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 9 | 1.70% | 1.76% | −0.06 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 8 | 1.50% | 5.57% | −4.07 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 5 | 1.00% | 0.82% | +0.18 |
| Steering | 4 | 0.80% | 2.57% | −1.77 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 7.8% | £5–20 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 7.3% | £80–200 |
| Position lamp with a multiple light source up to 1/2 not functioning Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 4.9% | £5–25 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 4.4% | £5–25 |
| Stop lamp with a multiple light source up to 1/2 not functioning Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 3.9% | £3–12 |
| Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 3.4% | £5–25 |
| Service brake performance excessively binding Brakes | Major | 3.4% | £60–150 |
| Rbt (sp) efficiency below requirements Brakes | Major | 2.4% | £45–110 |
| Sub-frame corroded and seriously weakened Suspension | Major | 2.4% | £180–450 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 1.9% | £45–95 |
Severity is as recorded: Major and Dangerous fail the test outright; Minor and Advisory do not. Costs are estimates from typical UK parts prices — see how they are built.
What testers noted without failing the car
Advisories are the early warnings — the same parts a year or two before they fail. Reading them is how you tell a car that has been maintained from one that has been patched.
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sub-frame corroded and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 20.0% | £180–450 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 18.5% | £45–110 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 17.1% | £45–95 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 15.6% | £40–150 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 13.2% | £200–700 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 10.2% | £45–95 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-60k | 1 | 100.0% | 52,930 mi |
| 60-90k | 38 | 76.3% | 79,938 mi |
| 90-120k | 84 | 73.8% | 105,159 mi |
| 120k+ | 82 | 73.2% | 150,175 mi |
Source: 205 recorded tests on this vehicle-year. Every row above is recomputed from the same DVSA extract as the rest of the page — see the methodology.
2008 COOPER D MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2008 MINI COOPER D?
74.1% of the 205 2008 MINI COOPER D tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 73.1% for cars first used in 2008. First-attempt pass rate: 67.3%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2008 MINI COOPER D?
The three most recorded items are registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (7.80%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (7.32%), position lamp with a multiple light source up to 1/2 not functioning (4.88%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2008 MINI COOPER D MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 100.0% of the time, falling to 73.2% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2008 MINI COOPER D in this dataset had covered 113,330 mi.
Does the season affect the 2008 MINI COOPER D MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 78.0% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 71.1%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.