2008 Volkswagen Touareg MOT pass rate

Pass rate

76.1%

Around average — 3.0 pts ahead of the 73.1% that cars this age and mileage manage.

Across 5,286 recorded tests.

Typical repair bill £26–£77

Most common fault

Suspension

25.4% 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 →

9.8 pts down across model years — 10.8% in 2004, 1.0% in 2020.

Every failure, with what it costs →

Which year to buy

  • Best 2022 94.2% pass
  • Avoid 2005 75.6% pass

Across the 20 years on record, a spread of 18.6 points. See every year →

First-attempt pass
70.4%
Typical mileage
136k mi

The 2008 Volkswagen Touareg MOT pass rate is 76.1% of its MOT tests — 3.0 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 25.4% of what testers record.

MOT PASS RATES

The 2008 Volkswagen Touareg on the real record

76.1% of 2008 Volkswagen Touareg MOTs passed — 5,286 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 Touareg does in your corner of the country.

How one model's pass rate varies by postcode →

Expert verdict

Lamps & electrics: 1.5× the national share

Lamps & electrics make up 18.0% of everything recorded on the 2008 Volkswagen Touareg, against 12.2% nationally — 5.8 points above. Suspension is still the single largest share at 25.4%, 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.

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 Touareg? Get an email when these numbers change .

How does the 2008 Volkswagen Touareg compare?

Cars of this age and mileage average 73.1%, so this figure is 3.0 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 70.4%. The median 2008 Volkswagen Touareg in this dataset had covered 136,075 mi.

The most common fuel recorded here is Diesel — 99% of tests, with a 76.0% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 75.8% of the time, April–September 76.5%.

The single most recorded failure item is "Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources", noted on 8.25% of tests.

  • 5,286 recorded tests behind this page.
  • 76.1% overall pass rate, 70.4% on a first attempt.
  • Across every year of the Volkswagen Touareg, the average is 82.3% — best year 2022 (94.2%), worst 2005 (75.6%).

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
5,286
Typical mileage (median)
136,075 mi
Make and model
Volkswagen Touareg
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 Touareg MOT pass rate?

0-30k 75.0%
30-60k 93.3%
60-90k 83.1%
90-120k 75.8%
120k+ 75.3%

Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 67% so small gaps stay visible.

Fuel type and reliability

Diesel 76.0%
Petrol 78.9%

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

Regional pass rates for the Touareg

Region Tests Pass rate
South East 1,170 75.9%
South West 718 70.9%
East of England 631 76.7%
North West 555 79.6%
West Midlands 493 78.5%
Yorkshire 439 77.7%
East Midlands 350 74.6%
Scotland 314 73.9%
Wales 289 73.7%
London 164 84.8%
North East 163 77.3%

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 2008 Touareg

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 25.4%
+4.4 pts vs national national 21.0% Price suspension parts
Lamps & electrics 18.0%
+5.8 pts vs national national 12.2% Order bulbs & wipers
Brakes 17.5%
−3.4 pts vs national national 20.9% Price brakes parts
Tyres 13.0%
−6.8 pts vs national national 19.8% Compare tyre prices
Show the other 6 fault categories
  • Emissions & leaks 10.0%
  • Visibility 4.2%
  • Body & chassis 4.0%
  • Advisories 3.1%
  • Seat belts 1.9%
  • Steering 1.4%

Shares are of every item recorded on 2008 Volkswagen Touareg 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 2008 Touareg

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 lights 8.3% 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.

  2. Check the coil springs 6.6% 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.

  3. 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 2008 Touareg through its MOT

Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £26–£77 — and 50% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.

Average repair across the 10 common items
£26–£77
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
50%

Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 5,286 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 Touareg, side by side

20 model years on record, from 2003 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 75.6% to 94.2% — a spread of 18.6 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.

  1. 2003 76.5% windscreen damaged but not…
  2. 2004 76.4% registration plate lamp(s)…
  3. 2005 75.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
  4. 2006 76.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
  5. 2007 76.1% registration plate lamp(s)…
  6. 2008 76.1%
    registration plate lamp(s)…
  7. 2009 77.0% registration plate lamp(s)…
  8. 2010 77.9% coil spring fractured or broken
  9. 2011 81.1% coil spring fractured or broken
  10. 2012 83.1% coil spring fractured or broken
  11. 2013 83.4% coil spring fractured or broken
  12. 2014 84.5% coil spring fractured or broken
  13. 2015 82.7% rear fog lamp not working
  14. 2016 83.9% rear fog lamp not working
  15. 2017 82.8% rear fog lamp not working
  16. 2018 88.2% coil spring fractured or broken
  17. 2019 89.0% coil spring fractured or broken
  18. 2020 92.8% windscreen damaged but not…
  19. 2021 92.3% has a cut in excess of the…
  20. 2022 94.2% windscreen damaged but not…

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 2008 Volkswagen Touareg 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 2008 with another year →

Compare two different cars instead →

Other 2008 cars with a similar record

Closest pass rates among 2008 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 2008 Volkswagen Touareg 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 13,134 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 3,385 25.40% 20.98% +4.42
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 2,399 18.00% 12.21% +5.79
Brakes 2,326 17.50% 20.89% −3.39
Tyres 1,728 13.00% 19.76% −6.76
Noise, emissions and leaks 1,338 10.00% 5.52% +4.48
Visibility 559 4.20% 4.97% −0.77
Body, chassis, structure 537 4.00% 5.57% −1.57
Non-component advisories 419 3.10% 4.18% −1.08
Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems 258 1.90% 0.82% +1.08
Steering 185 1.40% 2.57% −1.17

The exact failure items, in the tester's words

Share of the 5,286 tests on this vehicle that recorded each item
Recorded item Severity Tests Est. cost Part
Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Minor 8.3% £5–20 Number Plate Lamp →
Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension Major 6.6% £25–65 Coil Spring →
Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility Minor 4.5% £80–200 Windscreen →
Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Minor 3.5% £5–25 Headlight Bulb →
Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure Minor 2.5% £80–250 Body Panel Repair →
Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension Major 2.4% £40–150 Suspension Component →
Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks Major 2.3% £3–12 Indicator Bulb →
Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Major 2.3% £3–12 Stop Light Bulb →
Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension Minor 2.1% £18–45 Ball Joint →
Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Major 1.8% £5–25 Headlight 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 19.6% £45–95
Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks Advisory 17.9% £200–700
Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension Advisory 16.1% £40–150
Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes Advisory 10.5% £45–110
Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes Advisory 6.8% £18–45
Suspension arm corroded and seriously weakened Suspension Advisory 6.8% £35–85

Pass rate by mileage

Mileage Tests Pass rate Median odometer
0-30k 4 75.0% 20,146 mi
30-60k 45 93.3% 50,470 mi
60-90k 337 83.1% 79,490 mi
90-120k 1,228 75.8% 107,290 mi
120k+ 3,656 75.3% 155,249 mi

Source: 5,286 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.

2008 Touareg MOT questions

What is the MOT pass rate for a 2008 Volkswagen Touareg?

76.1% of the 5,286 2008 Volkswagen Touareg tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 73.1% for cars first used in 2008. First-attempt pass rate: 70.4%.

What are the most common MOT failures on a 2008 Volkswagen Touareg?

The three most recorded items are registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (8.25%), coil spring fractured or broken (6.64%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (4.52%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.

Does mileage affect the 2008 Volkswagen Touareg MOT pass rate?

Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 75.0% of the time, falling to 75.3% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2008 Volkswagen Touareg in this dataset had covered 136,075 mi.

Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2008 Volkswagen Touareg?

Diesel: 76.0% pass rate across 5,210 tests. Petrol: 78.9% pass rate across 76 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.

Does the season affect the 2008 Volkswagen Touareg MOT pass rate?

Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 75.8% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 76.5%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.