Audi 80 — MOT statistics 2024
The Audi 80 failed 32.8% of 814 first MOT attempts in 2024 ("first-time", excluding retests). Adjusted for the age of the fleet, its initial-failure ratio is 94.3 (100 = expected for its age profile). This car is too close to call — statistically indistinguishable from normal for its age. Small sample — treat with care.
Age-adjusted peer: Jeep Wrangler (index 94.2) — the two published results are 0.1 index points apart.
Audi 80 common problems: what actually fails the MOT
Suspension stands out at 26.7 per 100 tests, against 20.7 per 100 tests across UK vehicles of the same ages.
higher bar = fails more oftenrate per 100 tests
family vs national — matched to UK vehicles of the same ages — top component groups, per 100 tests. Legend: This family · National avg. Combined labels: family / national average. A gap here reflects how these vehicles are driven, used and maintained as well as how they were built — an MOT defect is a test outcome, not a breakdown.
Component-group comparison table
Each ratio carries a 95% interval. With 6 groups compared here, roughly one apparent difference in twenty is chance alone, and 1 of these is already inside an interval that includes 1.00×.
| Group | This family | Cases behind it | UK, same ages | Family / national |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lamps & electrical | 31.0 | 2,063 | 30.1 | 1.03×0.99–1.07 · not distinguishable |
| Suspension | 26.7 | 1,780 | 20.6 | 1.29×1.23–1.36 |
| Brakes | 26.0 | 1,735 | 20.7 | 1.25×1.20–1.32 |
| Body & structure | 21.1 | 1,406 | 15.4 | 1.37×1.30–1.45 |
| Visibility | 12.5 | 830 | 10.9 | 1.14×1.06–1.22 |
| Emissions & leaks | 12.1 | 807 | 7.8 | 1.55×1.45–1.67 |
| What failed | per 100 tests (this family) | per 100 tests (UK average) | ratio family / UK | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suspension pin, bush or joint excessively wornA suspension pin, bush or joint excessively worn | 10.52 | 4.87 | 2.16× | Listen for knocks over bumps — worn joints show up on the test |
| Transmission shaft constant velocity joint boot…A transmission shaft constant velocity joint boot severely deteriorated | 6.35 | 1.48 | 4.30× | Ask the seller about: A transmission shaft constant velocity joint boot severely d |
| Emissions levels exceed default limitsEmissions levels exceed default limits | 5.00 | 0.47 | 10.73× | Watch for smoke on a cold start — emissions failures are costly |
| Transmission shaft constant velocity joint boot…A transmission shaft constant velocity joint boot missing or no longer prevents the ingress of dirt etc | 5.81 | 1.56 | 3.73× | Ask the seller about: A transmission shaft constant velocity joint boot missing or |
| Obligatory rear fog lamp missing, or a front or…An obligatory rear fog lamp missing, or a front or rear fog lamp inoperative or in the case of a multiple light source more than 1/2 not functioning | 3.21 | 0.43 | 7.54× | Try every light and switch — lamps are a top failure |
| Parking brake efficiency below minimum requirementParking brake efficiency below minimum requirement | 3.96 | 1.24 | 3.20× | Feel for brake judder and pulling on the test drive |
| Windscreen washers not working or not providing…Windscreen washers not working or not providing sufficient fluid to clear the windscreen | 3.47 | 1.62 | 2.14× | Check wipers, washers and windscreen chips in the driver's view |
| Aim of a headlamp is not within limits laid down…The aim of a headlamp is not within limits laid down in the requirements | 4.35 | 2.57 | 1.70× | Try every light and switch — lamps are a top failure |
| Windscreen or window damaged or seriously…Windscreen or window damaged or seriously discoloured but not adversely affecting driver's view | 3.65 | 2.36 | 1.55× | Check wipers, washers and windscreen chips in the driver's view |
| Rear registration plate lamp or light source…A rear registration plate lamp or light source missing or inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources | 2.94 | 2.83 | 1.04× | Try every light and switch — lamps are a top failure |
Named defects ranked by how much more often they appear than the national average — not by raw rate.
Audi 80 MOT advisories: what gets flagged
Suspension is highest at 76.4 per 100 tests; Non-component advisories are lowest at 11.2 per 100 tests — the gap is 65.2 per 100 tests.
higher bar = flagged more oftenadvisory items per 100 initial tests
Advisory rates table
| Group | Advisories per 100 |
|---|---|
| Suspension | 76.4 |
| Brakes | 53.2 |
| Tyres | 31.6 |
| Emissions & leaks | 15.3 |
| Body & structure | 11.7 |
| Non-component advisories | 11.2 |
Advisories are wear the tester noted but didn't fail — what will need money soon.
If a car like this fails, does it fail again?
A failure rate does not say whether a failure is a one-off or the start of something. This follows the same vehicles into their next ordinary MOT a year later — retests after a repair are excluded, because they follow a failure by definition. 2019-2024.
| After this year's test | Fails next year | Vehicles followed |
|---|---|---|
| It failed | 33.8% | 583 |
| It passed | 29.7% | 2,452 |
A failed test does not clearly change next year's odds here (33.8% against 29.7%): the difference is within the margin of error. The failure most likely to come back is noise, emissions and leaks — 35.9% of those vehicles fail again next year. Some of this is the vehicle and some is the owner: a car that was let go once tends to be let go again. One caveat: a car that fails may be sold or scrapped rather than tested again, so these figures describe the vehicles that came back.
Adjusted for how much these are actually driven
The headline index adjusts for the fleet's age. Wear, though, follows mileage: a three-year-old taxi and a three-year-old garage queen sit in the same age band. These two rows compare every car with vehicles of the same age, and then with vehicles of the same age and the same annual mileage, 2019-2024, on 5,930 tests. Both stand on the six-year corpus so they are measured on identical data — compare them with each other, not with the headline index above, which is measured on 2024 alone.
| Standardised for | Index | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Age only | 118.3 | fails more often than expected |
| Age and annual mileage | 106.7 | fails more often than vehicles driven as much |
| Share doing under 3,000 miles a year | 20.0% | a normal spread of use |
Mileage matters here: matching on how much these are driven moves the figure by 11.6 points — this fleet works harder than the vehicles it is measured against, so the age-only view penalises it — but it does not change which side of normal the car sits on. One limit to keep in mind: mileage is partly a result of how often a car breaks down — one that spends weeks in the workshop covers fewer miles — so the mileage-matched figure can understate a real weakness. Tests with no usable odometer reading are left out of it.
How does the Audi 80 perform as it gets older?
Chart axes: car age, years · failure-rate scale 0–47%.
Takeaway: solid line: this family; dashed: all cars.
Data table
| Age | Audi 80 | All vehicles | Gap |
|---|
How dangerous are Audi 80 MOT failures?
Major defects stand out at 107.0 per 100 tests, against 52.8 per 100 tests nationally.
higher bar = fails more oftenrate per 100 tests
Severity table
| Severity | This family /100 | National /100 | Family / national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minor | 25.93 | 14.22 | 1.82× |
| Major | 107.00 | 52.75 | 2.03× |
| Dangerous | 12.24 | 11.15 | 1.10× |
Chart values: Minor 25.9 · Major 107.0 · Dangerous 12.2.
Per 100 tests on this family. National average: Minor 14.2 · Major 52.8 · Dangerous 11.2 per 100.
Does the month of an Audi 80 MOT matter?
Nov is highest at 44.5%; Jul is lowest at 33.8% — the gap is 10.8 percentage points.
higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points
Chart scale: 27%–46%.
bars: Audi 80 · dashed: all class-4 cars
Month-by-month table
| Month | Audi 80 | All vehicles | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 42.58% | 31.12% | +11.5 pp |
| Feb | 37.4% | 29.99% | +7.4 pp |
| Mar | 35.16% | 28.26% | +6.9 pp |
| Apr | 38.28% | 29.78% | +8.5 pp |
| May | 42.16% | 28.79% | +13.4 pp |
| Jun | 36.28% | 28.15% | +8.1 pp |
| Jul | 33.77% | 29.33% | +4.4 pp |
| Aug | 36.99% | 29.2% | +7.8 pp |
| Sep | 37.59% | 28.19% | +9.4 pp |
| Oct | 38.89% | 30.34% | +8.6 pp |
| Nov | 44.52% | 30.58% | +13.9 pp |
| Dec | 38.37% | 29.33% | +9.0 pp |
Takeaway: the spread between best and worst month is 10.8 percentage points — noticeable seasonality. Seasonality partly reflects registration-date clustering, not weather.
Before reading the shape: most of it is not about cars. Britain changes its registration plates twice a year, and 18.9% of these cars were first registered in March with another17.1% in September — 36% in two months against the 17% an even spread would give. An MOT falls due three years after first registration, so the buying calendar becomes the testing calendar. That shapes how many cars are tested each month — not how often they fail: the busiest months here are not the worst ones, so read the failure line on its own and the volume behind it separately.
Audi 80 average mileage by age
At age 20+, the middle half of 80s runs from 73,033 miles to 132,696 miles, against 105,307 miles as the median.
further right = more milesmedian is the typical car; band is p25–p75
Does high mileage mean more Audi 80 MOT failures?
All ages together, split by odometer (the bands are not split by age, so higher-mileage cars are also older and this mixes wear with age): 29.6% of the lowest-mileage cars failed versus 42.2% of the highest.
| Odometer | % failing | Tests | Gap vs lowest-mileage band |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40-70k miles | 29.6% | 631 | +0.0 pp |
| 70-100k miles | 36.7% | 1,239 | +7.1 pp |
| 100-140k miles | 38.3% | 1,975 | +8.7 pp |
| 140k+ miles | 42.2% | 2,613 | +12.6 pp |
line: median · band: middle half of the fleet (p25–p75)
Mileage by age (p25 / median / p75)
| Age | p25 | Median | p75 | Tests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20+ | 73,033 | 105,307 | 132,696 | 96 |
A typical 20+-year-old 80 has ~105,307 miles on the clock. Much more — ask why; much less — check for gaps in the MOT history.
Where in Britain the Audi 80 fails its MOT most
Bournemouth area is highest at 54.8%; Birmingham area is lowest at 23.4% — the gap is 31.4 percentage points.
higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points
| Toughest areas | % failing | vs model overall |
|---|---|---|
| Bournemouth (BH) | 54.84% | +16.4 pp |
| Bristol (BS) | 50.76% | +12.3 pp |
| Gloucester (GL) | 47.74% | +9.3 pp |
| Easiest areas | % failing | vs model overall |
|---|---|---|
| Birmingham (B) | 23.42% | -15.0 pp |
| Northampton (NN) | 26.55% | -11.9 pp |
| Sheffield (S) | 27.52% | -10.9 pp |
Every dot is a postcode area — size = how many were tested there, colour = share failing. These figures are not age-adjusted: coastal and rural areas often run older fleets and salted roads, so higher raw fail rates do not automatically mean a worse local stock of this model.
Map labels: Scotland · N. England · Wales · London · S. West.
How many miles does an Audi 80 last?
100,000+ miles is highest at 69.1%; 200,000+ miles is lowest at 13.1% — the gap is 55.9 percentage points.
higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points
| Odometer | Tests ≥ threshold | Share of sample |
|---|---|---|
| 100,000+ miles | 4,588 | 69.05% |
| 150,000+ miles | 2,260 | 34.02% |
| 200,000+ miles | 873 | 13.14% |
Of 6,644 tests of this family with a usable odometer in 2024, 69.0% had reached 100k miles, 34.0% had reached 150k miles, 13.1% had reached 200k miles. This is a cross-section of cars still presenting for MOT, not a full birth cohort.
Audi 80 faults that come together
Emissions & leaks + Seatbelts & SRS stand out at 3.84×, against 1.00× if the faults were independent.
above 1.0× = more than expectedbelow 1.0× = less
| Group A | Group B | Together | Lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noise, emissions and leaks | Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 20 | 3.84× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 35 | 3.58× (rough estimate) |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | Visibility | 21 | 3.46× (rough estimate) |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | Suspension | 34 | 3.43× (rough estimate) |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 33 | 2.99× (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Noise, emissions and leaks | 229 | 2.93× (rough estimate) |
| Tyres | Visibility | 89 | 2.93× (rough estimate) |
| Steering | Tyres | 52 | 2.85× (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Tyres | 118 | 2.8× (rough estimate) |
| Steering | Suspension | 176 | 2.73× (rough estimate) |
| Suspension | Tyres | 135 | 2.72× (rough estimate) |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | Tyres | 69 | 2.64× (rough estimate) |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | Steering | 89 | 2.62× (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 22 | 2.62× (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Steering | 140 | 2.56× (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Suspension | 377 | 2.53× (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 415 | 2.51× (rough estimate) |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Tyres | 139 | 2.51× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Steering | 159 | 2.5× (rough estimate) |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Visibility | 298 | 2.49× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Tyres | 122 | 2.49× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Noise, emissions and leaks | 226 | 2.48× (rough estimate) |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Noise, emissions and leaks | 254 | 2.47× (rough estimate) |
| Steering | Visibility | 97 | 2.46× (rough estimate) |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Steering | 175 | 2.44× (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Visibility | 220 | 2.42× (rough estimate) |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | Suspension | 214 | 2.32× (rough estimate) |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | Visibility | 130 | 2.3× (rough estimate) |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Suspension | 446 | 2.28× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Suspension | 391 | 2.25× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Brakes | 331 | 2.25× (rough estimate) |
| Suspension | Visibility | 240 | 2.23× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 414 | 2.14× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Visibility | 220 | 2.07× (rough estimate) |
| Body, chassis, structure | Identification of the vehicle | 18 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Identification of the vehicle | Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 17 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Identification of the vehicle | Visibility | 16 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | Steering | 15 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Identification of the vehicle | Suspension | 14 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Identification of the vehicle | 12 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | Tyres | 10 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Identification of the vehicle | Noise, emissions and leaks | 9 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Identification of the vehicle | Tyres | 8 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Identification of the vehicle | Steering | 8 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Speedometer and speed limiter | 7 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Brakes | Road Wheels | 5 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Road Wheels | 5 | too few (rough estimate) |
| Speedometer and speed limiter | Suspension | 5 | too few (rough estimate) |
Defects in «Noise, emissions and leaks» and «Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems» appear together 3.84× more often than chance (20 co-occurrences in the same test; 78 pairs compared).
Lift = how many times more often both groups appear on the same test than if independent. A pair is listed from 5 tests with both faults; the lift is shown from 20, and called above chance only when its 95% interval excludes 1 (see rough estimates).
Which Audi 80 engine is best?
diesel 1.8–2.0 is highest at 111.0; petrol over 2.0 is lowest at 88.6 — the gap is 22.4 points.
below 100 is betterabove 100 is worse100 = normal for this model at that age
| Fuel | Capacity | vs own age norm | Raw fail % | Tests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| petrol | over 2.0 litre | 88.6 | 34.23% | 1,712 (rough estimate) |
| petrol | 1.5–1.8 litre | 97.6 | 38.03% | 1,165 (rough estimate) |
| petrol | 1.8–2.0 litre | 105.4 | 41.09% | 1,655 (rough estimate) |
| diesel | 1.8–2.0 litre | 111 | 43.29% | 1,326 (rough estimate) |
Splitting this model by fuel alone hides the thing that actually differs. Within the same badge, the diesel 1.8–2.0 runs at 111 against this model's own age norm while the petrol over 2.0 runs at 88.6 — a spread of 22.4 points between two cars that share a name.
Read this one with more care than the rest of the page. Age is held constant, but who buys which engine is not: the largest capacity in a range is often a performance or executive variant that is garaged, cherished and lightly driven, while the smallest is frequently a fleet or entry car worked hard from new. The gap below is real in the test records; how much of it is the engine and how much is the owner, this data cannot separate. Bands under 100 tests are not shown; bands under 5,000 tests are rough estimates.
Audi 80 MOT repair costs
The MOT-failure repair budget per test runs from £154.66 to £293.85, against £54.85 for the test itself.
bigger number = costs morepounds per test, MOT-failing faults only
| Component | Fails per 100 tests | Typical repair | Its price | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suspension | 26.7 (nat. 15.36) | Suspension coil spring (single corner) | £180 | £48.06 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 31.0 (nat. 18.09) | Battery replacement (standard 12V lead-acid) | £140 | £43.40 |
| Brakes | 26.0 (nat. 11.25) | Front brake pads (parts + labour, typical hatchback) | £150 | £39.00 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 12.1 (nat. 3.67) | Exhaust rear silencer | £200 | £24.20 |
Multiply how often each component fails on this model by what that repair usually costs, and you get the amount an owner should expect to budget per test for MOT-failing faults only — roughly £155 to £294, on top of the test fee itself. It is a budgeting figure, not a quote: the spread between a set of pads and a set of discs is most of the range.
Prices are modal quotes from a hand-kept catalogue of published UK garage guides — we do not scrape the booking sites, their terms forbid it, so this list is short and updated by hand with a source and date against each line. Each line prices one typical repair in that group, not a full remedy, and only groups our catalogue actually covers are counted. The contrast worth noticing is the second card: the legal maximum for the test has been £54.85 since 2010, while the repairs it uncovers have followed inflation the whole time.
For scale from a different direction: Warrantywise, which sees used-car warranty claims rather than test failures, puts the average claim at £2,052 across the ten highest-claim models it ranks and £539 for Honda, the lowest-claim make in its index (Warrantywise index 2026, 1.6 million claims, cars aged 3–15). Those sit an order of magnitude above the figures in this table, and the gap is the point: a warranty claim is a gearbox or an engine, which almost never fails an MOT, while the faults that do fail one are corrosion, lamps and tyres, which no warranty pays for. The two numbers answer different questions and neither replaces the other.
Audi 80 rust problems: where they corrode
Salt-belt exposure stands out at 90th percentile, against 50th percentile as the middle of published models.
higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points
This Audi 80 has too few tests to judge for corrosion once age is held constant, and its owners live in areas that are saltier than most for the models we publish.
Corrosion is the one failure mode that is as much about geography as about the car. We keep the two apart on purpose: a model can look rusty simply because it is popular in Scotland, and a model can look clean simply because it is bought in Surrey. Blending them into a single score would hide which of the two is doing the work.
Exposure is this model's tests weighted by an area corrosion index built from frost days, salt load and distance to the coast — the composite validated at r = 0.42 against corrosion defects we actually record. It is published as a rank, not a raw score, because every mainstream model skews towards low-corrosion areas for the simple reason that most of Britain's cars are in the south. Susceptibility is standardised to the national age profile, so an old fleet does not get labelled a rusty model.
Does an Audi 80 advisory become a failure?
Suspension is highest at 19.9%; Tyres are lowest at 9.0% — the gap is 10.9 percentage points.
higher = more likelypercentage is the observed transition probability
chance the same component fails at the next MOT, given an advisory now
| Component | Fails next time | Typical lead time | Miles of warning | Advisories tracked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suspension | 19.9% | 12.1 months | 1,958 | 1,700 |
| Brakes | 17.2% | 12.2 months | 1,338 | 1,337 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 11.3% | 12.2 months | 1,680 | 656 |
| Tyres | 9.0% | 12.2 months | 1,592 | 930 |
This is the question an advisory note actually raises, and it needs six years of test history to answer. We followed the same vehicles from one MOT to the next across 2019–2024 and measured how often a component that was merely advised came back as a genuine failure at the next test.
Read it as a budgeting horizon, not a prophecy: the most likely component above turns into a failure for about 20 in 100 cars, and the median gap is 12.1 months and roughly 1,958 miles. The rest were repaired, sold, scrapped, or simply held. Rows with fewer than 500 tracked advisories are not shown.
What will fail next on an Audi 80?
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment after a failure at age 20+ are highest at 23.6%; Suspension after a passed at age 20+ is lowest at 9.2% — the gap is 14.4 percentage points.
higher = more likelypercentage is the observed transition probability
| Age | Last test | Most likely next failures | Cars tracked |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20+ | passed | Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 10.2% · Body, chassis, structure 10.0% · Suspension 9.2% | 1,409 |
| 20+ | advisory | Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 16.6% · Body, chassis, structure 15.9% · Suspension 14.8% | 1,472 |
| 20+ | failure | Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 23.6% · Suspension 19.5% · Body, chassis, structure 19.4% | 1,853 |
The same chains, cut differently: given a car's age and how its last test went, which component most often causes trouble at the following one.
The pattern that repeats across every family: a failure at one test roughly doubles the chance of a failure on the same component at the next one, and an advisory sits about half-way between a clean pass and a failure. Age bands in years; probabilities are per car, not per defect item.
Audi 80 ownership: what six years of MOTs show
The ten-day re-test pass rate is highest at 69.8%; The later re-test pass rate is lowest at 10.7% — the gap is 59.1 percentage points.
higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points
Failing is usually a same-week event, not a disaster. Of 1,700 failures followed through to their re-test, 19.53% were repaired and passed the same day and 69.76% within ten days; the median gap is 3 days. 5,368 defect items were cleared in the process.
Per mile driven, not per year. Dividing failures by the miles that actually went onto the odometers between consecutive tests gives 1.43 failures per 10,000 miles, on a median of 1,109 miles a year across 1,394 chains. This is the number to compare between models — an annual rate quietly rewards cars that barely leave the drive.
Two populations hide inside one model. 24.21% of these cars strung together three or more tests with nothing recorded at all, while 43.07% carried the same advisory three times or more — the same fault, noted, ignored, noted again. When you buy used you are buying one of those two histories, and the MOT record shows which.
Odometer anomalies: 4.71% of 1,465 chains show a reading lower than the previous test, with a median drop of 28,256 miles. We call this an anomaly and not fraud on purpose — instrument swaps, imports, unit mix-ups and keying errors all land in the same bucket. Obvious typos (drops under 100 miles or over 90% of the reading) are already excluded.
Audi 80 safety recalls and how to check yours
DVSA recall campaigns stand out at 4.
bigger number = more recorded casescompare like-for-like scope, not sample size alone
recall campaigns launched per year
| Reference | Launched | Vehicles | Concern |
|---|---|---|---|
R/1997/075 | 26/11/1997 | 50,523 | UNSCHEDULED DEPLOYMENT OF DRIVERS AIR BAG |
R/1993/078 | 07/02/1994 | 624 | WHEEL RETAINING BOLTS MAY BE TOO SHORT |
R/1993/013 | 27/04/1993 | 898 | POSSIBLE LEAKAGE OF POWER STEERING FLUID |
R/1992/009 | 14/02/1992 | 700 | POSSIBLE FAILURE OF FRONT SUSPENSION BOLTS |
DVSA lists 4 safety recall campaigns for the Audi 80, covering roughly 52,745 vehicles in total. A recall is the manufacturer fixing a fault for free, so an open recall on your car costs nothing to clear.
Counter-intuitive, and measured on our own data: across the 25 families published here, more recalls go with a lower MOT Risk Index (r = −0.52). Heavily recalled models are not worse cars in the test bay — an active manufacturer removes the fault before it becomes an MOT failure.
Check whether a specific car has an outstanding recall — free, by registration — at DVSA's recall service. Source: DVSA vehicle safety recalls (check-vehicle-recalls.service.gov.uk), OGL.
Audi 80 MOT: quick answers
Audi 80 MOT Risk Index is well below the reference at 94.3, against 100 for a car with the same age profile.
below 100 is betterabove 100 is worse100 = normal for this model at that age
- What is the Audi 80 first-time MOT pass rate?
- 67.2% of first attempts passed in 2024 (814 tests). This is the first-time figure: retests after repair are excluded. Basis: first-time, excluding retests.
- Why does this number differ from other sites?
- Other sites often report a pass rate that includes retests or counts all attempts. Our 32.8% figure is the first-time initial failure rate, using 814 primary tests as the denominator (first-time, excluding retests). The age-adjusted MOT initial-failure ratio 94.3 is shown separately because raw rates compare fleet age as well as cars.
Compare the Audi 80 with other cars
Abarth 500 is highest at 94.5; Jeep Wrangler is lowest at 94.2 — the gap is 0.3 points.
below 100 is betterabove 100 is worse100 = normal for this model at that age
Same brand
All Audi MOT statisticsAudi A1 MOT statsAudi Cabriolet MOT stats
Similar risk
Jeep Wrangler (index 94.2)Mercedes-Benz A-Class (index 94.2)Abarth 500 (index 94.5)
Same size class
how Bentley Flying compareshow McLaren 570 compareshow Fiat Coupe compares
By area
Audi 80 MOT failure rate by postcode area
By failure group
Audi 80 body, chassis and structure failuresAudi 80 brakes failuresAudi 80 vehicle identification failuresAudi 80 lamps, reflectors and electrics failuresAudi 80 noise, emissions and leaks failuresAudi 80 seat belts and airbags failuresAudi 80 steering failuresAudi 80 suspension failuresAudi 80 tyres failuresAudi 80 visibility failures
Data details & how to cite
Scope: class-4 vehicles (cars), initial tests only, outcomes pass / fail / fixed-on-the-spot at the station (PRS counts towards the failure rate — the defect was present at arrival). Index = observed initial failures ÷ failures expected for this fleet's exact age profile, ×100; margin of error is a 95% confidence interval. Covers ALL generations together — a 3-year-old and a 15-year-old are very different cars; a generation split is on the roadmap. Dataset release dataset_release_id=dvsa-2024-v2, frozen baseline; headline claim_id=family-stats:audi-80:dvsa-2024-v2. Full method: methodology.
Cite: MOT Risk Index (2026). Audi 80 MOT statistics 2024 (data release dvsa-2024-v2; downloadable dataset motriskindex-families-2024-v5, doi:10.5281/zenodo.22975051). https://motriskindex.co.uk/cars/audi-80/ · Published 2026-07-30.