Pass rate
94.4%
Above average — 3.7 pts ahead of the 90.7% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 2,462 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £42–£103
2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience MOT pass rate
- 2020
- typical 28,467 mi
Most common fault
Tyres
41.8% of faults · 19.8% nationally
mostly tread below the limit, cuts and sidewall bulges.
Part only £55–£85 for Tread depth below 1.6 mm. What fitting it takes →
Which year to buy
- Best 2022 95.5% pass
- Avoid 2021 93.4% pass
Across the 3 years on record, a spread of 2.1 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 94.1%
- Typical mileage
- 28k mi
The 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience MOT pass rate is 94.4% of its MOT tests — 3.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 41.8% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how SEAT Ateca Xperience does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 2.1× the national share
Tyres make up 41.8% of everything recorded on the 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience, against 19.8% nationally — 22.0 points above. Check all four tyres yourself, including the inner shoulders, and look at the date stamp — a tyre can pass on tread and still be six years old.
- 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 90.7% and this one manages 94.4% — 3.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 10% 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 Ateca Xperience? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 90.7%, so this figure is 3.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 94.1%. The median 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience in this dataset had covered 28,467 mi.
98% of the tests on this vehicle ran on Petrol, which passed 94.5% of the time. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 94.9% of the time, April–September 93.6%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view", noted on 1.58% of tests.
- 2,462 recorded tests behind this page.
- 94.4% overall pass rate, 94.1% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the SEAT Ateca Xperience, the average is 94.1% — best year 2022 (95.5%), worst 2021 (93.4%).
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
- 2,462
- Typical mileage (median)
- 28,467 mi
- Make and model
- SEAT Ateca Xperience
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Windscreen
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Does mileage affect the Ateca Xperience MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 83% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (98% of tests).
Regional pass rates for the Ateca Xperience
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 529 | 93.0% |
| Scotland | 291 | 90.7% |
| Yorkshire | 289 | 96.2% |
| East of England | 287 | 94.1% |
| South West | 254 | 95.3% |
| North West | 246 | 96.3% |
| East Midlands | 155 | 95.5% |
| West Midlands | 150 | 96.7% |
| Wales | 115 | 96.5% |
| North East | 90 | 94.4% |
| London | 56 | 92.9% |
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 2020 Ateca Xperience
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 2020 Ateca Xperience
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 windscreen 1.6% 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 shock absorbers 0.7% of tests
“shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak”
Press down hard on each corner of the car and let go. It should settle in one bounce; if it keeps rocking, or you can see oil weeping down a shock absorber, that is the fault a tester will find.
-
Check the brakes 0.7% of tests
“brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick”
Look through the spokes of each wheel at the pad — less than 3mm of friction material, or a lip on the disc edge, is the usual failure. Check the handbrake holds on a slope with a few clicks, not at the top of its travel.
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 2020 Ateca Xperience through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £42–£103 — and 10% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £42–£103
- Cheapest common item: wipers blade defective
- £8–£22
- Dearest common item: windscreen damaged
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 60%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 10%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 2,462 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 Ateca Xperience, side by side
3 model years on record, from 2020 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 93.4% to 95.5% — a spread of 2.1 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2020 94.4%windscreen damaged but not…
- 2021 93.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2022 95.5% 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 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience 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 2020 cars with a similar record
- Mazda Cx-30 94.3%
- Volvo XC40 R-Design B4 94.3%
- Volvo XC40 Inscription B4 94.6%
- Toyota YARIS 94.1%
- Jaguar I-Pace 94.1%
- Toyota Corolla Gr 94.1%
Closest pass rates among 2020 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 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience 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 1,552 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tyres | 651 | 41.80% | 19.76% | +22.04 |
| Brakes | 375 | 24.10% | 20.89% | +3.21 |
| Suspension | 192 | 12.30% | 20.98% | −8.68 |
| Non-component advisories | 133 | 8.50% | 4.18% | +4.32 |
| Visibility | 81 | 5.20% | 4.97% | +0.23 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 54 | 3.50% | 12.21% | −8.71 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 34 | 2.20% | 1.76% | +0.44 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 11 | 0.70% | 0.82% | −0.12 |
| Road Wheels | 11 | 0.70% | 0.75% | −0.05 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 10 | 0.60% | 5.52% | −4.92 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.6% | £80–200 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 0.93% | £45–95 |
| Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak Suspension | Major | 0.69% | £30–75 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 0.65% | £18–45 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.65% | £30–80 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 0.65% | £8–22 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 0.45% | £45–95 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 0.41% | £30–80 |
| Headlamp aim too low Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.37% | £30–80 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 0.32% | £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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 10.9% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 9.4% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 8.9% | £18–45 |
| Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak Suspension | Advisory | 6.0% | £30–75 |
| Non-component advisories Child Seat fitted not allowing full inspection of adult belt Non-component advisories | Advisory | 3.5% | £20–80 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 2.9% | £45–110 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 1,340 | 96.6% | 19,761 mi |
| 30-60k | 1,025 | 91.5% | 40,744 mi |
| 60-90k | 90 | 93.3% | 67,127 mi |
| 90-120k | 6 | 100.0% | 100,473 mi |
| 120k+ | 1 | 100.0% | 178,879 mi |
Source: 2,462 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.
2020 Ateca Xperience MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience?
94.4% of the 2,462 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 90.7% for cars first used in 2020. First-attempt pass rate: 94.1%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience?
The three most recorded items are windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (1.58%), has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords (0.93%), shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak (0.69%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 96.6% of the time, falling to 100.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience in this dataset had covered 28,467 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience?
Petrol: 94.5% pass rate across 2,420 tests. Diesel: 90.5% pass rate across 42 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2020 SEAT Ateca Xperience MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 94.9% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 93.6%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.