Pass rate
69.3%
Below average — 2.9 pts behind the 72.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 50,389 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £48–£140
2004 Volkswagen Golf MOT pass rate
- 2004
- 2 trims combined
- typical 123,773 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Suspension
24.8% 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 →
6.7 pts down across model years — 7.2% in 2000, 0.5% in 2017.
Which year to buy
- Best 2024 98.1% pass
- Avoid 2004 69.3% pass · this year
Across the 25 years on record, a spread of 28.8 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 59.5%
- Typical mileage
- 124k mi
The 2004 Volkswagen Golf MOT pass rate is 69.3% of its MOT tests — 2.9 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 24.8% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Fewer problems with tyres
Tyres are 11.6% of this car’s recorded faults, against 19.8% nationally — the mirror image of the usual story on a car of this age.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 35% 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 Volkswagen Golf? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Volkswagen Golf first registered in 2004 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2004 Volkswagen Golf compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.2%, so this figure is 2.9 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 59.5%. The median 2004 Volkswagen Golf in this dataset had covered 123,773 mi.
55% of the tests on this vehicle ran on Petrol, which passed 70.0% of the time. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 69.2% of the time, April–September 69.4%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated", noted on 8.67% of tests.
- 50,389 recorded tests behind this page.
- 69.3% overall pass rate, 59.5% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Volkswagen Golf, the average is 82.1% — best year 2024 (98.1%), worst 2004 (69.3%).
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
- 50,389
- Typical mileage (median)
- 123,773 mi
- Make and model
- Volkswagen Golf
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Body Panel Repair
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Does mileage affect the Golf MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 59% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (55% of tests).
Where the Volkswagen Golf is most common
Across all Golf model years on record (2000–2024): 1,331,556 Volkswagen Golf cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 3,104,807 tests. Birmingham (B) has the most, with 43,084 cars tested there. Cars are counted by the postcode area of the MOT station, so this is where they were tested, not necessarily where their owners live.
| # | Postcode area | Cars | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birmingham (B) | 43,084 | 87.0% |
| 2 | Leicester (LE) | 27,129 | 83.2% |
| 3 | Sheffield (S) | 27,058 | 85.3% |
| 4 | Peterborough (PE) | 23,632 | 82.4% |
| 5 | Reading (RG) | 22,987 | 82.1% |
| 6 | Guildford (GU) | 22,929 | 80.7% |
| 7 | Bristol (BS) | 22,277 | 76.7% |
| 8 | Bradford (BD) | 22,002 | 84.3% |
| 9 | Manchester (M) | 21,874 | 83.2% |
| 10 | Nottingham (NG) | 21,306 | 81.0% |
| 11 | Oxford (OX) | 20,173 | 81.4% |
| 12 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 20,129 | 83.9% |
| 13 | Glasgow (G) | 19,666 | 82.3% |
| 14 | Coventry (CV) | 19,613 | 84.2% |
| 15 | Gloucester (GL) | 18,699 | 78.5% |
| 16 | Northampton (NN) | 18,519 | 81.4% |
| 17 | Derby (DE) | 18,502 | 83.8% |
| 18 | Cardiff (CF) | 18,322 | 79.3% |
| 19 | Ashford (TN) | 17,999 | 81.4% |
| 20 | Leeds (LS) | 17,709 | 80.9% |
The twenty areas with the most Volkswagen Golf cars in the record, sorted by car count — sort the columns for a different question. Cars tested at a station whose postcode area could not be resolved are counted in the model's total but in no area, so the shares add up to slightly under 100% even across every area, and an area's cars are a subset of the model's. Pass rate is blank below 30 tests in an area, where a percentage is noise rather than a finding. How this model's pass rate varies by postcode →
Regional pass rates for the Golf
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 13,478 | 71.3% |
| South West | 8,119 | 62.7% |
| East of England | 5,709 | 70.1% |
| West Midlands | 4,349 | 70.7% |
| North West | 4,025 | 70.0% |
| London | 3,665 | 78.1% |
| Yorkshire | 3,181 | 68.5% |
| East Midlands | 2,963 | 69.1% |
| Wales | 2,280 | 65.4% |
| Scotland | 1,619 | 65.3% |
| North East | 998 | 68.5% |
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 2004 Golf
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 2004 Golf
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 6.0% of tests
“headlamp lens slightly defective”
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 5.5% 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.
-
Check the coil springs 3.6% 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 2004 Golf through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £48–£140 — and 35% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £48–£140
- 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
- 40%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 35%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 50,389 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 Golf, side by side
25 model years on record, from 2000 to 2024. Across them the pass rate runs from 69.3% to 98.1% — a spread of 28.8 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 72.0% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2001 72.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2002 72.6% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2003 72.8% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2004 69.3%joints constant velocity boot…
- 2005 71.0% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2006 71.3% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2007 72.8% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2008 73.6% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2009 75.7% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2010 75.6% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2011 76.7% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2012 78.7% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2013 83.6% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2014 85.6% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2015 87.6% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2016 89.0% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2017 89.7% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2018 90.7% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2019 91.3% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2020 93.0% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2021 92.6% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2022 93.7% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2023 95.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2024 98.1% ball joint dust cover severely…
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 2004 Volkswagen Golf 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 2004 cars with a similar record
- Citroen C3 69.3%
- Hyundai Getz 69.3%
- Jaguar X-Type 69.2%
- Kia Picanto 69.2%
- Citroen Xsara 69.5%
- Vauxhall Astravan 69.1%
Closest pass rates among 2004 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 2004 Volkswagen Golf 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 171,989 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 | 43,725 | 24.80% | 20.98% | +3.82 |
| Brakes | 31,389 | 17.80% | 20.89% | −3.09 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 24,188 | 13.70% | 12.21% | +1.49 |
| Tyres | 20,390 | 11.60% | 19.76% | −8.16 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 17,111 | 9.70% | 5.57% | +4.13 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 15,611 | 8.90% | 5.52% | +3.38 |
| Visibility | 7,059 | 4.00% | 4.97% | −0.97 |
| Steering | 4,484 | 2.50% | 2.57% | −0.07 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 4,186 | 2.40% | 1.76% | +0.64 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 3,846 | 2.20% | 0.82% | +1.38 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure | Minor | 8.7% | £80–250 |
| Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 6.0% | £5–25 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 5.5% | £80–200 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 5.4% | £3–12 |
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 5.3% | £5–20 |
| Joints constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Body, chassis, structure | Major | 3.9% | £80–250 |
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 3.7% | £30–80 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 3.6% | £25–65 |
| 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 | 2.5% | £180–450 |
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 | 21.6% | £45–95 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 18.3% | £40–150 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 14.7% | £200–700 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 13.4% | £45–110 |
| Sub-frame corroded and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 10.6% | £180–450 |
| Coil spring corroded so that its cross sectional area is reduced and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 10.5% | £25–65 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 294 | 87.1% | 22,664 mi |
| 30-60k | 2,403 | 77.5% | 48,816 mi |
| 60-90k | 8,008 | 71.8% | 76,787 mi |
| 90-120k | 12,631 | 69.2% | 105,626 mi |
| 120k+ | 26,781 | 67.8% | 158,866 mi |
Source: 50,389 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.
2004 Golf MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2004 Volkswagen Golf?
69.3% of the 50,389 2004 Volkswagen Golf tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.2% for cars first used in 2004. First-attempt pass rate: 59.5%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2004 Volkswagen Golf?
The three most recorded items are joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated (8.67%), headlamp lens slightly defective (5.95%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (5.47%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2004 Volkswagen Golf MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 87.1% of the time, falling to 67.8% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2004 Volkswagen Golf in this dataset had covered 123,773 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2004 Volkswagen Golf?
Petrol: 70.0% pass rate across 27,705 tests. Diesel: 68.4% pass rate across 22,681 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2004 Volkswagen Golf MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 69.2% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 69.4%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.