Pass rate
77.7%
Around average — 0.5 pts ahead of the 77.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 179 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £18–£56
2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer MOT pass rate
- 2012
- typical 113,771 mi
Most common fault
Suspension
37.4% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Part only £35–£75 for Suspension pin or bush excessively worn. What fitting it takes →
Which year to buy
- Best 2013 81.8% pass
- Avoid 2011 75.5% pass
Across the 3 years on record, a spread of 6.3 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 71.4%
- Typical mileage
- 114k mi
The 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer MOT pass rate is 77.7% of its MOT tests — about what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 37.4% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Subaru Forester Xc Boxer does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Suspension: 1.8× the national share
Suspension accounts for 37.4% of everything recorded on the 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer, against 21.0% nationally — 16.4 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.
- Failures here tend to be cheap ones. 56% 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. 179 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 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 77.2%, so this figure is 0.5 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 71.4%. The median 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer in this dataset had covered 113,771 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 80.8% of the time, April–September 75.5%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources", noted on 10.61% of tests.
- 179 recorded tests behind this page.
- 77.7% overall pass rate, 71.4% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Subaru Forester Xc Boxer, the average is 78.1% — best year 2013 (81.8%), worst 2011 (75.5%).
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
- 179
- Typical mileage (median)
- 113,771 mi
- Make and model
- Subaru Forester Xc Boxer
- 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 Forester Xc Boxer MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 64% so small gaps stay visible.
Regional pass rates for the Forester Xc Boxer
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| Scotland | 44 | 68.2% |
| South West | 36 | 86.1% |
| West Midlands | 23 | 78.3% |
| North West | 20 | 65.0% |
| South East | 17 | 82.4% |
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 2012 Forester Xc Boxer
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 Forester Xc Boxer
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 10.6% 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 suspension joints 7.3% of tests
“pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn”
With the car parked on level ground, rock the top of each front wheel in and out while someone watches the suspension arm. Clunks, or rubber boots split and greasy, are what testers record here.
-
Check the windscreen 3.9% 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 Forester Xc Boxer through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £18–£56 — and 56% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £18–£56
- Cheapest common item: stop lamp not working
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: windscreen damaged
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 80%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 56%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 179 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 Forester Xc Boxer, side by side
3 model years on record, from 2011 to 2013. Across them the pass rate runs from 75.5% to 81.8% — a spread of 6.3 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2011 75.5% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2012 77.7%registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2013 81.8% position lamp not working
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 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer 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
- Vauxhall Astra 77.7%
- Skoda Octavia 77.7%
- Vauxhall Agila 77.7%
- Skoda Superb 77.7%
- Abarth 500 77.8%
- Volkswagen Scirocco 77.6%
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 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer 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 496 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 | 186 | 37.40% | 20.98% | +16.42 |
| Brakes | 94 | 18.90% | 20.89% | −1.99 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 83 | 16.70% | 12.21% | +4.49 |
| Tyres | 55 | 11.10% | 19.76% | −8.66 |
| Visibility | 18 | 3.60% | 4.97% | −1.37 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 16 | 3.20% | 5.52% | −2.32 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 15 | 3.00% | 1.76% | +1.24 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 13 | 2.60% | 5.57% | −2.97 |
| Non-component advisories | 9 | 1.80% | 4.18% | −2.38 |
| Steering | 7 | 1.40% | 2.57% | −1.17 |
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 | 10.6% | £5–20 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 7.3% | £40–150 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 6.7% | £3–12 |
| Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 6.2% | £18–45 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 5.6% | £5–25 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 4.5% | £5–25 |
| Linkage ball joints ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 3.9% | £18–45 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 3.9% | £80–200 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 2.8% | £18–45 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 2.8% | £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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 41.9% | £40–150 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 16.8% | £45–110 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 12.3% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 11.7% | £45–95 |
| Linkage ball joints ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 11.7% | £18–45 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 11.2% | £18–45 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-60k | 5 | 100.0% | 48,988 mi |
| 60-90k | 43 | 72.1% | 79,293 mi |
| 90-120k | 50 | 78.0% | 102,349 mi |
| 120k+ | 81 | 79.0% | 138,952 mi |
Source: 179 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 Forester Xc Boxer MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer?
77.7% of the 179 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 77.2% for cars first used in 2012. First-attempt pass rate: 71.4%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer?
The three most recorded items are registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (10.61%), pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn (7.26%), stop lamp not working (6.70%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 100.0% of the time, falling to 79.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer in this dataset had covered 113,771 mi.
Does the season affect the 2012 Subaru Forester Xc Boxer MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 80.8% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 75.5%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.