Pass rate
89.4%
Above average — 1.3 pts behind the 90.7% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 725 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £40–£98
2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence MOT pass rate
- 2020
- typical 35,960 mi
Most common fault
Tyres
41.7% 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 2021 90.3% pass
- Avoid 2019 87.6% pass
Across the 4 years on record, a spread of 2.7 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 88.2%
- Typical mileage
- 36k mi
The 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence MOT pass rate is 89.4% of its MOT tests — 1.3 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 41.7% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how SEAT Leon Xcellence does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 2.1× the national share
Tyres make up 41.7% of everything recorded on the 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence, against 19.8% nationally — 21.9 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.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 0% 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 Leon Xcellence? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 90.7%, so this figure is 1.3 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 88.2%. The median 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence in this dataset had covered 35,960 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 90.6% of the time, April–September 88.1%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords", noted on 2.21% of tests.
- 725 recorded tests behind this page.
- 89.4% overall pass rate, 88.2% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the SEAT Leon Xcellence, the average is 89.6% — best year 2021 (90.3%), worst 2019 (87.6%).
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
- 725
- Typical mileage (median)
- 35,960 mi
- Make and model
- SEAT Leon Xcellence
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Tyres
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Leon Xcellence MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 69% so small gaps stay visible.
Regional pass rates for the Leon Xcellence
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| North West | 125 | 89.6% |
| Scotland | 100 | 84.0% |
| Yorkshire | 80 | 90.0% |
| East Midlands | 80 | 90.0% |
| West Midlands | 64 | 92.2% |
| South East | 57 | 87.7% |
| South West | 56 | 92.9% |
| Wales | 52 | 92.3% |
| East of England | 47 | 85.1% |
| North East | 46 | 91.3% |
| London | 18 | 94.4% |
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 Leon Xcellence
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 Leon Xcellence
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 shock absorbers 1.5% 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 coil springs 1.4% 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 windscreen 1.2% 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 2020 Leon Xcellence through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £40–£98 — and 0% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £40–£98
- Cheapest common item: brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick
- £18–£45
- Dearest common item: windscreen damaged
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 60%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 0%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 725 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 Leon Xcellence, side by side
4 model years on record, from 2019 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 87.6% to 90.3% — a spread of 2.7 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2019 87.6% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2020 89.4%has a cut in excess of the…
- 2021 90.3% has ply or cords exposed
- 2022 89.7% has ply or cords exposed
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 Leon Xcellence 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
- Volkswagen Amarok 89.4%
- Renault Zoe I Iconc 89.4%
- Renault Kadjar 89.5%
- Dacia Sandero 89.5%
- Dacia Duster 89.5%
- BMW 3 Series 89.3%
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 Leon Xcellence 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 531 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 | 222 | 41.70% | 19.76% | +21.94 |
| Suspension | 129 | 24.20% | 20.98% | +3.22 |
| Brakes | 81 | 15.20% | 20.89% | −5.69 |
| Non-component advisories | 35 | 6.60% | 4.18% | +2.42 |
| Visibility | 22 | 4.10% | 4.97% | −0.87 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 21 | 3.90% | 12.21% | −8.31 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 10 | 1.90% | 1.76% | +0.14 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 6 | 1.10% | 5.52% | −4.42 |
| Road Wheels | 4 | 0.80% | 0.75% | +0.05 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 1 | 0.20% | 5.57% | −5.37 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 2.2% | £45–95 |
| Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak Suspension | Major | 1.5% | £30–75 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 1.4% | £25–65 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.2% | £80–200 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 0.83% | £18–45 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.83% | £30–80 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 0.69% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 0.69% | £45–95 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 0.55% | £40–150 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 0.41% | £30–80 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak Suspension | Advisory | 12.4% | £30–75 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 11.6% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 10.3% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 7.0% | £18–45 |
| Non-component advisories Nail in tyre Non-component advisories | Advisory | 2.2% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 2.1% | £45–110 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 281 | 91.5% | 18,973 mi |
| 30-60k | 327 | 88.1% | 43,368 mi |
| 60-90k | 100 | 88.0% | 71,113 mi |
| 90-120k | 8 | 100.0% | 100,762 mi |
| 120k+ | 9 | 77.8% | 157,910 mi |
Source: 725 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 Leon Xcellence MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence?
89.4% of the 725 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 90.7% for cars first used in 2020. First-attempt pass rate: 88.2%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence?
The three most recorded items are has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords (2.21%), shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak (1.52%), coil spring fractured or broken (1.38%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 91.5% of the time, falling to 77.8% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence in this dataset had covered 35,960 mi.
Does the season affect the 2020 SEAT Leon Xcellence MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 90.6% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 88.1%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.