2014 Volkswagen Passat MOT pass rate

Pass rate

80.0%

Around average — 0.2 pts behind the 80.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.

Across 55,207 recorded tests.

Typical repair bill £46–£124

Most common fault

Suspension

32.2% 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 →

7.1 pts down across model years — 7.7% in 2000, 0.6% in 2018.

Every failure, with what it costs →

Which year to buy

  • Best 2023 95.3% pass
  • Avoid 2000 71.5% pass

Across the 24 years on record, a spread of 23.8 points. See every year →

First-attempt pass
75.3%
Typical mileage
110k mi

The 2014 Volkswagen Passat MOT pass rate is 80.0% of its MOT tests — about what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 32.2% of what testers record.

MOT PASS RATES

The 2014 Volkswagen Passat on the real record

80.0% of 2014 Volkswagen Passat MOTs passed — 55,207 tests, 2023–2025

Pass rate

The answer from the DVSA's class-4 MOT records.

Check your postcode

MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Volkswagen Passat does in your corner of the country.

How one model's pass rate varies by postcode →

Expert verdict

Suspension: 1.5× the national share

Suspension accounts for 32.2% of everything recorded on the 2014 Volkswagen Passat, against 21.0% nationally — 11.2 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.

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 Passat? Get an email when these numbers change .

Every Volkswagen Passat first registered in 2014 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.

How does the 2014 Volkswagen Passat compare?

Cars of this age and mileage average 80.2%, so this figure is 0.2 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 75.3%. The median 2014 Volkswagen Passat in this dataset had covered 109,548 mi.

The most common fuel recorded here is Diesel — 99% of tests, with a 79.9% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 79.8% of the time, April–September 80.1%.

The single most recorded failure item is "Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn", noted on 3.58% of tests.

  • 55,207 recorded tests behind this page.
  • 80.0% overall pass rate, 75.3% on a first attempt.
  • Across every year of the Volkswagen Passat, the average is 80.2% — best year 2023 (95.3%), worst 2000 (71.5%).

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
55,207
Typical mileage (median)
109,548 mi
Make and model
Volkswagen Passat
Updated
2026-11-05

Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.

Top part to budget for

Suspension Component

Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.

Does mileage affect the Passat MOT pass rate?

0-30k 91.1%
30-60k 85.9%
60-90k 81.7%
90-120k 79.2%
120k+ 78.2%

Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 70% so small gaps stay visible.

Fuel type and reliability

Diesel 79.9%
Petrol 89.7%

Pass rate by fuel type. Diesel is the most common here (99% of tests).

Regional pass rates for the Passat

Region Tests Pass rate
South East 8,163 81.4%
North West 6,942 80.2%
South West 6,820 76.9%
Yorkshire 6,142 80.9%
West Midlands 5,732 81.2%
Scotland 5,723 74.4%
East of England 5,301 83.1%
East Midlands 4,086 81.5%
Wales 3,112 79.0%
North East 2,748 81.1%
London 438 87.0%

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 2014 Passat

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.

Suspension 32.2%
+11.2 pts vs national national 21.0% Price suspension parts
Tyres 24.2%
+4.4 pts vs national national 19.8% Compare tyre prices
Brakes 19.3%
−1.6 pts vs national national 20.9% Price brakes parts
Lamps & electrics 6.0%
−6.2 pts vs national national 12.2% Order bulbs & wipers
Show the other 6 fault categories
  • Visibility 4.0%
  • Advisories 3.4%
  • Body & chassis 3.2%
  • Emissions & leaks 3.1%
  • Identification 2.3%
  • Road wheels 0.9%

Shares are of every item recorded on 2014 Volkswagen Passat tests — a composition, so they add to 100% across all sections, not per test.

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 2014 Passat

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.

  1. Check the suspension joints 3.6% 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.

  2. Check the windscreen 3.4% 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.

  3. Check the coil springs 2.9% 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 2014 Passat through its MOT

Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £46–£124 — and 5% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.

Average repair across the 10 common items
£46–£124
Cheapest common item: malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or…
£3–£12
Dearest common item: joints constant velocity boot severely…
£80–£250
Common items a careful owner can do at home
70%
Repairs that still cost under £30
5%

Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 55,207 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 Passat, side by side

24 model years on record, from 2000 to 2023. Across them the pass rate runs from 71.5% to 95.3% — a spread of 23.8 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.

  1. 2000 71.5% joints constant velocity boot…
  2. 2001 72.8% joints constant velocity boot…
  3. 2002 73.3% joints constant velocity boot…
  4. 2003 73.1% joints constant velocity boot…
  5. 2004 74.3% joints constant velocity boot…
  6. 2005 74.1% joints constant velocity boot…
  7. 2006 72.4% joints constant velocity boot…
  8. 2007 73.7% joints constant velocity boot…
  9. 2008 74.7% joints constant velocity boot…
  10. 2009 75.9% registration plate lamp(s)…
  11. 2010 75.5% registration plate lamp(s)…
  12. 2011 76.8% pins and bushes pin or bush…
  13. 2012 77.4% coil spring fractured or broken
  14. 2013 78.7% pins and bushes pin or bush…
  15. 2014 80.0%
    pins and bushes pin or bush…
  16. 2015 84.6% windscreen damaged but not…
  17. 2016 85.8% windscreen damaged but not…
  18. 2017 86.9% shock absorbers has a serious…
  19. 2018 88.6% windscreen damaged but not…
  20. 2019 89.3% windscreen damaged but not…
  21. 2020 90.6% windscreen damaged but not…
  22. 2021 90.3% windscreen damaged but not…
  23. 2022 90.5% windscreen damaged but not…
  24. 2023 95.3% has a cut in excess of the…

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 2014 Volkswagen Passat 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.

Compare 2014 with another year →

Compare two different cars instead →

Other 2014 cars with a similar record

Closest pass rates among 2014 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 2014 Volkswagen Passat 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 89,478 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 29,249 32.20% 20.98% +11.22
Tyres 21,997 24.20% 19.76% +4.44
Brakes 17,507 19.30% 20.89% −1.59
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 5,451 6.00% 12.21% −6.21
Visibility 3,598 4.00% 4.97% −0.97
Non-component advisories 3,083 3.40% 4.18% −0.78
Body, chassis, structure 2,864 3.20% 5.57% −2.37
Noise, emissions and leaks 2,847 3.10% 5.52% −2.42
Identification of the vehicle 2,099 2.30% 1.76% +0.54
Road Wheels 783 0.90% 0.75% +0.15

The exact failure items, in the tester's words

Share of the 55,207 tests on this vehicle that recorded each item
Recorded item Severity Tests Est. cost Part
Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension Major 3.6% £40–150 Suspension Component →
Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility Minor 3.4% £80–200 Windscreen →
Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension Major 2.9% £25–65 Coil Spring →
Has ply or cords exposed Tyres Major 1.7% £45–95 Tyres →
Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres Major 1.7% £45–95 Tyres →
Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure Minor 1.6% £80–250 Body Panel Repair →
Suspension arm corroded and seriously weakened Suspension Major 1.4% £35–85 Suspension Wishbone Arm →
Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres Major 1.2% £45–95 Tyres →
Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes Major 0.99% £18–45 Brake Pads Set →
Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks Major 0.99% £3–12 Indicator Bulb →

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.

Items recorded as advisory on this vehicle
Recorded item Severity Tests Est. cost
Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres Advisory 22.0% £45–95
Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension Advisory 16.9% £40–150
Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes Advisory 13.3% £45–110
Suspension arm corroded and seriously weakened Suspension Advisory 10.1% £35–85
Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes Advisory 8.9% £18–45
Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres Advisory 5.5% £45–95

Pass rate by mileage

Mileage Tests Pass rate Median odometer
0-30k 495 91.1% 23,052 mi
30-60k 4,369 85.9% 48,619 mi
60-90k 12,568 81.7% 76,559 mi
90-120k 14,963 79.2% 104,554 mi
120k+ 22,637 78.2% 165,233 mi

Source: 55,207 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.

2014 Passat MOT questions

What is the MOT pass rate for a 2014 Volkswagen Passat?

80.0% of the 55,207 2014 Volkswagen Passat tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 80.2% for cars first used in 2014. First-attempt pass rate: 75.3%.

What are the most common MOT failures on a 2014 Volkswagen Passat?

The three most recorded items are pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn (3.58%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (3.38%), coil spring fractured or broken (2.85%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.

Does mileage affect the 2014 Volkswagen Passat MOT pass rate?

Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 91.1% of the time, falling to 78.2% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2014 Volkswagen Passat in this dataset had covered 109,548 mi.

Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2014 Volkswagen Passat?

Diesel: 79.9% pass rate across 54,720 tests. Petrol: 89.7% pass rate across 487 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.

Does the season affect the 2014 Volkswagen Passat MOT pass rate?

Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 79.8% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 80.1%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.