Pass rate
65.7%
Below average — 6.8 pts behind the 72.5% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 67 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £30–£84
2006 Subaru Legacy R MOT pass rate
- 2006
- typical 115,506 mi
Only 67 tests of this exact model and year are in the DVSA data, below the 100 we ask for before a page goes in the index. The figures are still shown, because they are the only ones there are.
Most common fault
Suspension
29.8% 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 2006 65.7% pass · this year
- Avoid 2006 65.7% pass · this year
Across the 1 years on record, a spread of 0 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 50.0%
- Typical mileage
- 116k mi
The 2006 Subaru Legacy R MOT pass rate is 65.7% of its MOT tests — 6.8 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 29.8% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Subaru Legacy R does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Suspension: 1.4× the national share
Suspension accounts for 29.8% of everything recorded on the 2006 Subaru Legacy R, against 21.0% nationally — 8.8 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.
- Falls short of its own age and mileage. Like-for-like, cars this age and mileage expect about 72.5%; this one manages 65.7% — 6.8 points below. Age is a fair excuse; this is not age.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 32% 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 Subaru Legacy R? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2006 Subaru Legacy R compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.5%, so this figure is 6.8 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 50.0%. The median 2006 Subaru Legacy R in this dataset had covered 115,506 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 68.8% of the time, April–September 62.9%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction", noted on 8.96% of tests.
- 67 recorded tests behind this page.
- 65.7% overall pass rate, 50.0% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Subaru Legacy R, the average is 65.7% — best year 2006 (65.7%), worst 2006 (65.7%).
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
- 67
- Typical mileage (median)
- 115,506 mi
- Make and model
- Subaru Legacy R
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Indicator Bulb
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Legacy R MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 46% so small gaps stay visible.
Regional pass rates for the Legacy R
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South West | 22 | 59.1% |
| Yorkshire | 16 | 62.5% |
| South East | 16 | 56.3% |
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 2006 Legacy R
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 2006 Legacy R
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 9.0% of tests
“malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction”
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 6.0% 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 4.5% 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 2006 Legacy R through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £30–£84 — and 32% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £30–£84
- Cheapest common item: malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or…
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: windscreen damaged
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 60%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 32%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 67 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 →
Compare the 2006 Subaru Legacy R 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 2006 cars with a similar record
- Chevrolet Matiz 66.0%
- Mazda Bongo 66.3%
- Vauxhall Combo 66.7%
- Ford Ka 66.8%
- Volkswagen Sharan 67.0%
- Volkswagen Beetle 67.3%
Closest pass rates among 2006 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 2006 Subaru Legacy R 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 177 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 | 53 | 29.80% | 20.98% | +8.82 |
| Brakes | 34 | 19.10% | 20.89% | −1.79 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 26 | 14.60% | 12.21% | +2.39 |
| Tyres | 23 | 12.90% | 19.76% | −6.86 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 15 | 8.40% | 5.57% | +2.83 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 11 | 6.20% | 5.52% | +0.68 |
| Visibility | 9 | 5.10% | 4.97% | +0.13 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 4 | 2.20% | 1.76% | +0.44 |
| Non-component advisories | 1 | 0.60% | 4.18% | −3.58 |
| Steering | 1 | 0.60% | 2.57% | −1.97 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 9.0% | £3–12 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 6.0% | £40–150 |
| Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 4.5% | £5–25 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 4.5% | £80–200 |
| Ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 3.0% | £18–45 |
| Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 3.0% | £18–45 |
| Brake pads worn down to wear indicator Brakes | Major | 3.0% | £18–45 |
| Brake performance not tested unable to be tested Brakes | Major | 3.0% | £60–150 |
| Exhaust system has a major leak of exhaust gases Body, chassis, structure | Major | 3.0% | £45–120 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 3.0% | £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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 29.9% | £40–150 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 17.9% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 13.4% | £18–45 |
| Sub-frame corroded and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 10.4% | £180–450 |
| Brake discs significantly and obviously worn Brakes | Advisory | 9.0% | £45–110 |
| Headlamp has a product on the lens so that the light output is severely reduced Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Advisory | 9.0% | £5–25 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-60k | 5 | 60.0% | 50,197 mi |
| 60-90k | 11 | 54.5% | 78,772 mi |
| 90-120k | 23 | 69.6% | 109,943 mi |
| 120k+ | 28 | 67.9% | 164,063 mi |
Source: 67 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.
2006 Legacy R MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2006 Subaru Legacy R?
65.7% of the 67 2006 Subaru Legacy R tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.5% for cars first used in 2006. First-attempt pass rate: 50.0%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2006 Subaru Legacy R?
The three most recorded items are malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction (8.96%), pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn (5.97%), headlamp lens slightly defective (4.48%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2006 Subaru Legacy R MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 60.0% of the time, falling to 67.9% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2006 Subaru Legacy R in this dataset had covered 115,506 mi.
Does the season affect the 2006 Subaru Legacy R MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 68.8% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 62.9%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.