Pass rate
93.8%
Above average — 2.6 pts ahead of the 91.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 1,897 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £42–£98
2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro MOT pass rate
- 2021
- 2 trims combined
- typical 27,167 mi
Most common fault
Tyres
55.7% of faults · 19.8% nationally
mostly tread below the limit, cuts and sidewall bulges.
Part only £55–£85 for Tread depth below 1.6 mm. What fitting it takes →
Which year to buy
- Best 2021 93.8% pass · this year
- Avoid 2022 92.6% pass
Across the 3 years on record, a spread of 1.2 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 93.4%
- Typical mileage
- 27k mi
The 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro MOT pass rate is 93.8% of its MOT tests — 2.6 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 55.7% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 2.8× the national share
Tyres make up 55.7% of everything recorded on the 2021 Volvo Xc40 R-Design Pro, against 19.8% nationally — 35.9 points above. Check all four tyres yourself, including the inner shoulders, and look at the date stamp — a tyre can pass on tread and still be six years old.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 16% 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 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro first registered in 2021 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 91.2%, so this figure is 2.6 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 93.4%. The median 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro in this dataset had covered 27,167 mi.
The most common fuel recorded here is Hybrid — 99% of tests, with a 93.8% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 93.6% of the time, April–September 94.0%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords", noted on 2.79% of tests.
- 1,897 recorded tests behind this page.
- 93.8% overall pass rate, 93.4% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro, the average is 93.3% — best year 2021 (93.8%), worst 2022 (92.6%).
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
- 1,897
- Typical mileage (median)
- 27,167 mi
- Make and model
- Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Tyres
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the XC40 R-Design Pro MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 84% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Hybrid is the most common here (99% of tests).
Regional pass rates for the XC40 R-Design Pro
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 376 | 92.6% |
| North West | 252 | 94.8% |
| East of England | 201 | 92.0% |
| West Midlands | 187 | 93.0% |
| Yorkshire | 182 | 94.0% |
| Scotland | 180 | 95.6% |
| South West | 168 | 92.3% |
| East Midlands | 118 | 95.8% |
| London | 88 | 94.3% |
| Wales | 78 | 97.4% |
| North East | 67 | 94.0% |
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 2021 XC40 R-Design Pro
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 2021 XC40 R-Design Pro
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 wipers and washers 0.9% of tests
“wipers blade defective”
Run the wipers with the screen wet: they should clear it in one sweep without smearing or juddering. Top the washer bottle up and check both jets hit the screen.
-
Check the windscreen 0.9% 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 tyre tread 0.7% of tests
“tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm”
Check all four tyres cold, including the inner shoulder where wear hides — 1.6mm across the central three-quarters is the legal limit, and most testers fail at 1.6mm without argument.
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 2021 XC40 R-Design Pro through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £42–£98 — and 16% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £42–£98
- Cheapest common item: wipers blade defective
- £8–£22
- 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
- 16%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 1,897 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 XC40 R-Design Pro, side by side
3 model years on record, from 2020 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 92.6% to 93.8% — a spread of 1.2 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2020 93.1% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2021 93.8%has a cut in excess of the…
- 2022 92.6% 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 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro 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 2021 cars with a similar record
- Volkswagen T-Roc 93.8%
- Honda Civic 93.8%
- Toyota Prius 93.8%
- Toyota Corolla 93.7%
- Peugeot 108 93.7%
- Kia Stonic Connect 93.7%
Closest pass rates among 2021 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 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro 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 903 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tyres | 505 | 55.70% | 19.76% | +35.94 |
| Brakes | 149 | 16.40% | 20.89% | −4.49 |
| Non-component advisories | 121 | 13.30% | 4.18% | +9.12 |
| Visibility | 51 | 5.60% | 4.97% | +0.63 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 39 | 4.30% | 12.21% | −7.91 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 9 | 1.00% | 5.57% | −4.57 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 9 | 1.00% | 1.76% | −0.76 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 9 | 1.00% | 0.82% | +0.18 |
| Road Wheels | 6 | 0.70% | 0.75% | −0.05 |
| Suspension | 5 | 0.60% | 20.98% | −20.38 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 2.8% | £45–95 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 0.95% | £8–22 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 0.90% | £80–200 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 0.69% | £45–95 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 0.63% | £45–95 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.63% | £30–80 |
| Has a bulge, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Major | 0.53% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 0.32% | £18–45 |
| Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure | Minor | 0.32% | £80–250 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 0.32% | £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 | 10.9% | £45–95 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Advisory | 4.6% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 3.6% | £18–45 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 3.6% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Nail in tyre Non-component advisories | Advisory | 3.5% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Child Seat fitted not allowing full inspection of adult belt Non-component advisories | Advisory | 2.5% | £20–80 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 1,127 | 94.5% | 20,341 mi |
| 30-60k | 711 | 92.7% | 40,024 mi |
| 60-90k | 55 | 92.7% | 68,629 mi |
| 90-120k | 4 | 100.0% | 94,937 mi |
Source: 1,897 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.
2021 XC40 R-Design Pro MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro?
93.8% of the 1,897 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 91.2% for cars first used in 2021. First-attempt pass rate: 93.4%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro?
The three most recorded items are has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords (2.79%), wipers blade defective (0.95%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (0.90%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 94.5% of the time, falling to 100.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro in this dataset had covered 27,167 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro?
Hybrid: 93.8% pass rate across 1,881 tests. Petrol: 93.8% pass rate across 16 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2021 Volvo XC40 R-Design Pro MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 93.6% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 94.0%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.