Pass rate
80.4%
Around average — 7.8 pts ahead of the 72.6% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 8,543 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £49–£154
2003 Porsche Boxster MOT pass rate
- 2003
- 2 trims combined
- typical 81,805 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Brakes
30.3% of faults · 20.9% nationally
mostly worn pads and discs, corroded pipes and a handbrake that will not hold.
Part only £25–£55 for Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded. What fitting it takes →
10.6 pts down across model years — 11.2% in 2000, 0.6% in 2016.
Which year to buy
- Best 2022 97.2% pass
- Avoid 2002 80.3% pass
Across the 23 years on record, a spread of 16.9 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 77.1%
- Typical mileage
- 82k mi
The 2003 Porsche Boxster MOT pass rate is 80.4% of its MOT tests — 7.8 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Brakes is the biggest single reason it fails, at 30.3% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Brakes: 1.5× the national share
Brakes make up 30.3% of everything recorded on the 2003 Porsche Boxster, against 20.9% nationally — 9.4 points above. Have the discs and pads measured rather than glanced at, and ask whether the handbrake holds on a slope.
- Beats its own age and mileage. Once you allow for how old and how far these cars have been driven, the expected pass rate is 72.6% and this one manages 80.4% — 7.8 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 24% of this model’s typical repairs come in under £30 in parts — the failures here tend to be the kind that need a garage rather than a bulb.
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 Porsche Boxster? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Porsche Boxster first registered in 2003 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2003 Porsche Boxster compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.6%, so this figure is 7.8 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 77.1%. The median 2003 Porsche Boxster in this dataset had covered 81,805 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 79.5% of the time, April–September 81.0%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Catalyst emissions Lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits", noted on 5.54% of tests.
- 8,543 recorded tests behind this page.
- 80.4% overall pass rate, 77.1% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Porsche Boxster, the average is 86.8% — best year 2022 (97.2%), worst 2002 (80.3%).
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
- 8,543
- Typical mileage (median)
- 81,805 mi
- Make and model
- Porsche Boxster
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Emissions Repair
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Does mileage affect the Boxster MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 64% so small gaps stay visible.
Where the Porsche Boxster is most common
Across all Boxster model years on record (2000–2022): 46,760 Porsche Boxster cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 99,884 tests. Guildford (GU) has the most, with 1,283 cars tested there. Cars are counted by the postcode area of the MOT station, so this is where they were tested, not necessarily where their owners live.
| # | Postcode area | Cars | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guildford (GU) | 1,283 | 86.6% |
| 2 | Birmingham (B) | 1,205 | 90.1% |
| 3 | Ashford (TN) | 1,154 | 89.1% |
| 4 | Crawley (RH) | 1,125 | 86.8% |
| 5 | Reading (RG) | 1,101 | 89.0% |
| 6 | Nottingham (NG) | 949 | 85.8% |
| 7 | Coventry (CV) | 886 | 87.7% |
| 8 | Sheffield (S) | 845 | 89.3% |
| 9 | Leicester (LE) | 844 | 88.3% |
| 10 | Portsmouth (PO) | 836 | 87.3% |
| 11 | Gloucester (GL) | 795 | 83.9% |
| 12 | Northampton (NN) | 776 | 85.3% |
| 13 | Chelmsford (CM) | 754 | 86.2% |
| 14 | Derby (DE) | 737 | 87.4% |
| 15 | Leeds (LS) | 734 | 87.0% |
| 16 | Kingston upon Thames (KT) | 733 | 88.4% |
| 17 | Bristol (BS) | 722 | 83.4% |
| 18 | Exeter (EX) | 669 | 85.6% |
| 19 | Poole (BH) | 650 | 85.5% |
| 20 | Peterborough (PE) | 650 | 86.8% |
The twenty areas with the most Porsche Boxster cars in the record, sorted by car count — sort the columns for a different question. Cars tested at a station whose postcode area could not be resolved are counted in the model's total but in no area, so the shares add up to slightly under 100% even across every area, and an area's cars are a subset of the model's. Pass rate is blank below 30 tests in an area, where a percentage is noise rather than a finding. How this model's pass rate varies by postcode →
Regional pass rates for the Boxster
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 1,963 | 81.8% |
| South West | 1,134 | 76.8% |
| East of England | 1,065 | 81.3% |
| West Midlands | 775 | 81.2% |
| North West | 771 | 80.4% |
| Yorkshire | 663 | 81.4% |
| East Midlands | 630 | 80.8% |
| Scotland | 576 | 76.9% |
| Wales | 356 | 76.4% |
| North East | 314 | 81.8% |
| London | 296 | 86.1% |
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 2003 Boxster
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 2003 Boxster
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 exhaust and emissions 5.5% of tests
“catalyst emissions Lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits”
Listen for a blow at idle and have someone rev it gently. Then look at the tailpipe smoke: blue is oil, white when warm is coolant, black is over-fuelling. Any of those and the emissions test is the least of it.
-
Check the windscreen 2.8% 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 the lights 2.4% 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.
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 2003 Boxster through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £49–£154 — and 24% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £49–£154
- Cheapest common item: registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the…
- £5–£20
- Dearest common item: catalyst emissions lambda reading after 2nd…
- £60–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 40%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 24%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 8,543 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 Boxster, side by side
23 model years on record, from 2000 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 80.3% to 97.2% — a spread of 16.9 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 80.4% catalyst emissions lambda reading…
- 2001 80.5% catalyst emissions lambda reading…
- 2002 80.3% catalyst emissions lambda reading…
- 2003 80.4%catalyst emissions lambda reading…
- 2004 81.5% catalyst emissions lambda reading…
- 2005 84.6% catalyst emissions lambda reading…
- 2006 85.8% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2007 87.3% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2008 89.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2009 91.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2010 91.8% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2011 91.5% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2012 91.6% ball joint excessively worn
- 2013 93.5% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2014 93.0% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2015 94.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2016 94.6% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2017 94.3% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2018 95.0% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2019 95.6% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2020 94.9% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2021 96.8% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2022 97.2% 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 2003 Porsche Boxster 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 2003 cars with a similar record
- Subaru Impreza 80.0%
- Mercedes-Benz S-Class 81.7%
- Jaguar Xj 78.8%
- Mercedes-Benz Slk 78.3%
- Lexus IS200 78.0%
- BMW Z4 77.5%
Closest pass rates among 2003 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 2003 Porsche Boxster 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 13,758 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brakes | 4,203 | 30.30% | 20.89% | +9.41 |
| Suspension | 2,186 | 15.80% | 20.98% | −5.18 |
| Tyres | 1,948 | 14.10% | 19.76% | −5.66 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 1,883 | 13.60% | 12.21% | +1.39 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 1,393 | 10.10% | 5.52% | +4.58 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 862 | 6.20% | 5.57% | +0.63 |
| Visibility | 572 | 4.10% | 4.97% | −0.87 |
| Steering | 289 | 2.10% | 2.57% | −0.47 |
| Non-component advisories | 264 | 1.90% | 4.18% | −2.28 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 158 | 1.10% | 1.76% | −0.66 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catalyst emissions Lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 5.5% | £60–250 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 2.8% | £80–200 |
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 2.4% | £5–20 |
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Major | 2.4% | £80–180 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 2.1% | £25–65 |
| Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure | Minor | 1.9% | £80–250 |
| Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 1.7% | £5–25 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.6% | £5–25 |
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.4% | £30–80 |
| Joints constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Body, chassis, structure | Major | 1.3% | £80–250 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Advisory | 21.0% | £80–180 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 13.8% | £45–110 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 10.4% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 7.8% | £45–95 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 6.1% | £200–700 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 4.5% | £40–150 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 298 | 96.3% | 21,484 mi |
| 30-60k | 1,672 | 85.5% | 48,225 mi |
| 60-90k | 3,237 | 81.5% | 75,405 mi |
| 90-120k | 2,499 | 76.4% | 103,397 mi |
| 120k+ | 822 | 72.7% | 139,571 mi |
Source: 8,543 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.
2003 Boxster MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2003 Porsche Boxster?
80.4% of the 8,543 2003 Porsche Boxster tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.6% for cars first used in 2003. First-attempt pass rate: 77.1%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2003 Porsche Boxster?
The three most recorded items are catalyst emissions lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits (5.54%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (2.84%), registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (2.36%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2003 Porsche Boxster MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 96.3% of the time, falling to 72.7% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2003 Porsche Boxster in this dataset had covered 81,805 mi.
Does the season affect the 2003 Porsche Boxster MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 79.5% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 81.0%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.