Pass rate
77.0%
Around average — 0.2 pts behind the 77.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 405 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £40–£105
2012 SEAT Altea XL MOT pass rate
- 2012
- typical 99,470 mi
Most common fault
Suspension
28.5% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Part only £40–£65 for Shock absorber leaking. What fitting it takes →
Which year to buy
- Best 2014 79.2% pass
- Avoid 2007 70.5% pass
Across the 8 years on record, a spread of 8.7 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 71.3%
- Typical mileage
- 99k mi
The 2012 SEAT Altea XL MOT pass rate is 77.0% of its MOT tests — about what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 28.5% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how SEAT Altea XL does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Suspension: 1.4× the national share
Suspension accounts for 28.5% of everything recorded on the 2012 SEAT Altea Xl, against 21.0% nationally — 7.5 points above. Ask for the front and rear suspension to be checked on a ramp before you buy — worn bushes and broken springs are cheap to look at and expensive to discover at test time.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 19% 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 SEAT Altea XL? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2012 SEAT Altea XL compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 77.2%, so this figure is 0.2 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 71.3%. The median 2012 SEAT Altea XL in this dataset had covered 99,470 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 75.4% of the time, April–September 78.2%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Coil spring fractured or broken", noted on 4.94% of tests.
- 405 recorded tests behind this page.
- 77.0% overall pass rate, 71.3% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the SEAT Altea XL, the average is 74.5% — best year 2014 (79.2%), worst 2007 (70.5%).
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
- 405
- Typical mileage (median)
- 99,470 mi
- Make and model
- SEAT Altea XL
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Coil Spring
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Altea XL MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 64% so small gaps stay visible.
Regional pass rates for the Altea XL
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South West | 55 | 69.1% |
| South East | 52 | 76.9% |
| Yorkshire | 50 | 78.0% |
| Wales | 45 | 80.0% |
| Scotland | 44 | 70.5% |
| East of England | 36 | 77.8% |
| East Midlands | 34 | 76.5% |
| West Midlands | 33 | 87.9% |
| North West | 31 | 87.1% |
| North East | 23 | 69.6% |
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 2012 Altea XL
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 2012 Altea XL
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 coil springs 4.9% of tests
“coil spring fractured or broken”
Look up inside each wheel arch with a torch, all the way round the spring. A snapped spring usually breaks at the very bottom coil, where a quick glance will not reach.
-
Check the lights 4.4% 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.
-
Check the windscreen 4.4% 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.
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 2012 Altea XL through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £40–£105 — and 19% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £40–£105
- Cheapest common item: stop lamp with a multiple light source up to…
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: joints constant velocity boot severely…
- £80–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 60%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 19%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 405 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 Altea XL, side by side
8 model years on record, from 2007 to 2014. Across them the pass rate runs from 70.5% to 79.2% — a spread of 8.7 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2007 70.5% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2008 71.7% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2009 72.0% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2010 75.4% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2011 77.9% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2012 77.0%coil spring fractured or broken
- 2013 78.1% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2014 79.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
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 2012 SEAT Altea XL 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 2012 cars with a similar record
- Ford Focus 77.0%
- Ford Kuga 76.9%
- Volkswagen Jetta 76.9%
- Vauxhall Insignia 77.2%
- Ford Mondeo 77.2%
- Ford Grand C-Max 76.7%
Closest pass rates among 2012 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 2012 SEAT Altea XL 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 928 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 | 268 | 28.50% | 20.98% | +7.52 |
| Brakes | 198 | 21.10% | 20.89% | +0.21 |
| Tyres | 157 | 16.70% | 19.76% | −3.06 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 146 | 15.50% | 12.21% | +3.29 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 57 | 6.10% | 5.57% | +0.53 |
| Visibility | 38 | 4.00% | 4.97% | −0.97 |
| Non-component advisories | 19 | 2.00% | 4.18% | −2.18 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 18 | 1.90% | 1.76% | +0.14 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 14 | 1.50% | 5.52% | −4.02 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 13 | 1.40% | 0.82% | +0.58 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 4.9% | £25–65 |
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 4.4% | £5–20 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 4.4% | £80–200 |
| Service brake performance excessively binding Brakes | Major | 4.2% | £60–150 |
| Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure | Minor | 3.0% | £80–250 |
| Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak Suspension | Major | 3.0% | £30–75 |
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 2.5% | £30–80 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 2.2% | £18–45 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 1.7% | £45–95 |
| Stop lamp with a multiple light source up to 1/2 not functioning Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 1.7% | £3–12 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 20.0% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 17.3% | £45–110 |
| Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak Suspension | Advisory | 10.1% | £30–75 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 7.4% | £18–45 |
| Sub-frame corroded and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 7.4% | £180–450 |
| Coil spring corroded so that its cross sectional area is reduced and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 7.2% | £25–65 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 5 | 100.0% | 23,778 mi |
| 30-60k | 41 | 78.0% | 49,685 mi |
| 60-90k | 112 | 81.3% | 75,623 mi |
| 90-120k | 156 | 75.6% | 104,504 mi |
| 120k+ | 91 | 72.5% | 149,048 mi |
Source: 405 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.
2012 Altea XL MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2012 SEAT Altea XL?
77.0% of the 405 2012 SEAT Altea XL tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 77.2% for cars first used in 2012. First-attempt pass rate: 71.3%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2012 SEAT Altea XL?
The three most recorded items are coil spring fractured or broken (4.94%), registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (4.44%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (4.44%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2012 SEAT Altea XL MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 100.0% of the time, falling to 72.5% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2012 SEAT Altea XL in this dataset had covered 99,470 mi.
Does the season affect the 2012 SEAT Altea XL MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 75.4% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 78.2%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.