Pass rate
73.1%
Below average — 2.8 pts behind the 75.9% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 2,580 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £34–£94
2011 Volkswagen Beetle MOT pass rate
- 2011
- 2 trims combined
- typical 75,508 mi
Most common fault
Suspension
19.8% 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 →
5.8 pts down across model years — 10.1% in 2000, 4.3% in 2018.
Which year to buy
- Best 2018 85.3% pass
- Avoid 2007 66.6% pass
Across the 19 years on record, a spread of 18.7 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 65.0%
- Typical mileage
- 76k mi
The 2011 Volkswagen Beetle MOT pass rate is 73.1% of its MOT tests — 2.8 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 19.8% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Volkswagen Beetle does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Lamps & electrics: 1.5× the national share
Lamps & electrics make up 17.9% of everything recorded on the 2011 Volkswagen Beetle, against 12.2% nationally — 5.7 points above. Suspension is still the single largest share at 19.8%, but at 21.0% nationally that one is ordinary. Walk round the car with the lights on before the test: bulbs, indicators and number-plate lamps are the cheapest failures to prevent and among the most common.
- Failures here tend to be cheap ones. 58% 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.
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 Volkswagen Beetle? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Volkswagen Beetle first registered in 2011 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2011 Volkswagen Beetle compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 75.9%, so this figure is 2.8 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 65.0%. The median 2011 Volkswagen Beetle in this dataset had covered 75,508 mi.
The most common fuel recorded here is Petrol — 95% of tests, with a 73.2% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 74.1% of the time, April–September 72.0%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources", noted on 5.31% of tests.
- 2,580 recorded tests behind this page.
- 73.1% overall pass rate, 65.0% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Volkswagen Beetle, the average is 72.2% — best year 2018 (85.3%), worst 2007 (66.6%).
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
- 2,580
- Typical mileage (median)
- 75,508 mi
- Make and model
- Volkswagen Beetle
- 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 Beetle MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 58% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (95% of tests).
Regional pass rates for the Beetle
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 534 | 72.8% |
| South West | 323 | 68.7% |
| East of England | 284 | 76.1% |
| North West | 261 | 78.9% |
| Scotland | 239 | 64.0% |
| Yorkshire | 221 | 71.9% |
| West Midlands | 203 | 77.8% |
| East Midlands | 200 | 74.0% |
| Wales | 133 | 74.4% |
| London | 101 | 78.2% |
| North East | 81 | 71.6% |
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 2011 Beetle
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 2011 Beetle
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 5.3% 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 5.1% 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 coil springs 4.5% 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.
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 2011 Beetle through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £34–£94 — and 58% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £34–£94
- Cheapest common item: malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or…
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: component mounting prescribed areas…
- £180–£450
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 70%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 58%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 2,580 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 Beetle, side by side
19 model years on record, from 2000 to 2018. Across them the pass rate runs from 66.6% to 85.3% — a spread of 18.7 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 66.9% headlamp lens slightly defective
- 2001 67.8% headlamp lens slightly defective
- 2002 67.0% headlamp lens slightly defective
- 2003 67.1% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2004 66.8% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2005 69.0% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2006 67.3% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2007 66.6% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2008 68.1% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2009 70.2% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2010 72.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2011 73.1%registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2012 76.3% rear fog lamp not working
- 2013 76.2% rear fog lamp not working
- 2014 77.4% rear fog lamp not working
- 2015 78.4% rear fog lamp not working
- 2016 79.8% rear fog lamp not working
- 2017 81.9% rear fog lamp not working
- 2018 85.3% pins and bushes pin or bush…
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 2011 Volkswagen Beetle 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 2011 cars with a similar record
- Hyundai I30 73.1%
- Mitsubishi Lancer 73.0%
- Ford Galaxy 73.2%
- Chevrolet Spark 73.2%
- Kia Soul 73.2%
- Suzuki Splash 73.2%
Closest pass rates among 2011 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 2011 Volkswagen Beetle 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 5,904 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 | 1,188 | 19.80% | 20.98% | −1.18 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 1,075 | 17.90% | 12.21% | +5.69 |
| Brakes | 1,034 | 17.20% | 20.89% | −3.69 |
| Tyres | 940 | 15.60% | 19.76% | −4.16 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 420 | 7.00% | 5.52% | +1.48 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 398 | 6.60% | 5.57% | +1.03 |
| Visibility | 395 | 6.60% | 4.97% | +1.63 |
| Steering | 196 | 3.30% | 2.57% | +0.73 |
| Non-component advisories | 177 | 2.90% | 4.18% | −1.28 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 81 | 1.30% | 1.76% | −0.46 |
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 | 5.3% | £5–20 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 5.1% | £80–200 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 4.5% | £25–65 |
| Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 4.0% | £5–25 |
| Headlamp not working on dipped beam Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 3.1% | £5–25 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 3.1% | £5–25 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 2.9% | £3–12 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 2.8% | £40–150 |
| Component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength Suspension | Major | 2.7% | £180–450 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 2.6% | £8–22 |
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 | 15.9% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 13.8% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 12.1% | £45–110 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 12.0% | £40–150 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 6.8% | £18–45 |
| Coil spring corroded so that its cross sectional area is reduced and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 5.7% | £25–65 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 50 | 86.0% | 20,532 mi |
| 30-60k | 654 | 80.3% | 49,524 mi |
| 60-90k | 1,132 | 71.4% | 75,025 mi |
| 90-120k | 578 | 69.2% | 101,530 mi |
| 120k+ | 166 | 66.9% | 138,396 mi |
Source: 2,580 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.
2011 Beetle MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2011 Volkswagen Beetle?
73.1% of the 2,580 2011 Volkswagen Beetle tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 75.9% for cars first used in 2011. First-attempt pass rate: 65.0%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2011 Volkswagen Beetle?
The three most recorded items are registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (5.31%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (5.08%), coil spring fractured or broken (4.46%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2011 Volkswagen Beetle MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 86.0% of the time, falling to 66.9% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2011 Volkswagen Beetle in this dataset had covered 75,508 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2011 Volkswagen Beetle?
Petrol: 73.2% pass rate across 2,450 tests. Diesel: 72.3% pass rate across 130 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2011 Volkswagen Beetle MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 74.1% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 72.0%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.