Volkswagen Phaeton — MOT statistics 2024

The Volkswagen Phaeton failed 23.31% of 841 first MOT attempts in 2024 ("first-time", excluding retests). Adjusted for the age of the fleet, its initial-failure ratio is 58.8 (100 = expected for its age profile). This car fails its MOT about 41% less often than expected for its age. Small sample — treat with care.

Age-adjusted peer: Jaguar I-Pace (index 59.1) — the two published results are 0.3 index points apart.

Volkswagen Phaeton common problems: what actually fails the MOT

Suspension is well below the reference at 5.8 per 100 tests, against 23.3 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.

Named defects ranked by how much more often they appear than the national average — not by raw rate.

Volkswagen Phaeton MOT advisories: what gets flagged

Tyres are highest at 39.3 per 100 tests; Identification is lowest at 2.0 per 100 tests — the gap is 37.3 per 100 tests.

higher bar = flagged more oftenadvisory items per 100 initial tests

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.

A failed test raises next year's chance of failing again by 6.1 percentage points. The failure most likely to come back is visibility — 30.5% 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 6,926 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.

Mileage changes little here (-3.1 points): this fleet is driven about as much as the vehicles it is compared with. 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 the Volkswagen Phaeton compares with cars of its own age and size

Not against the whole fleet — against cars of the same size class tested at the same age, 2019-2024.

Raw first-time failure rates within each age, so fleet age cannot flatter either side. A positive difference means this model fails more often than its own class at that age.

How does the Volkswagen Phaeton perform as it gets older?

The Phaeton at age 15 is well below the reference at 25.0%, against 41.6% for all vehicles of the same age.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Chart axes: car age, years · failure-rate scale 0–47%.

Takeaway: solid line: this family; dashed: all cars.

How dangerous are Volkswagen Phaeton MOT failures?

Major defects are well below the reference at 34.5 per 100 tests, against 52.8 per 100 tests nationally.

higher bar = fails more oftenrate per 100 tests

Chart values: Minor 16.9 · Major 34.5 · Dangerous 11.3.

Per 100 tests on this family. National average: Minor 14.2 · Major 52.8 · Dangerous 11.2 per 100.

Does the month of a Volkswagen Phaeton MOT matter?

Feb is highest at 28.0%; Jul is lowest at 20.2% — the gap is 7.8 percentage points.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Chart scale: 19%–33%.

bars: Volkswagen Phaeton · dashed: all class-4 cars

Takeaway: the spread between best and worst month is 7.8 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.

Volkswagen Phaeton average mileage by age

At age 15, the middle half of Phaetons runs from 88,788 miles to 141,742 miles, against 117,696 miles as the median.

further right = more milesmedian is the typical car; band is p25–p75

Chart axes: car age, years · odometer scale 0–165k mi.

Does high mileage mean more Volkswagen Phaeton MOT failures at the same age?

Within the same age group, split by odometer (2024 MOTs), so this separates wear from age: at ages 10–14, 17.9% of those with 40,000–70,000 miles failed first time versus 27.9% of those with over 140,000 miles.No clear mileage gap inside this age group, among cars still being tested.

line: median · band: middle half of the fleet (p25–p75)

A typical 15-year-old Phaeton has ~117,696 miles on the clock. Much more — ask why; much less — check for gaps in the MOT history.

Where in Britain the Volkswagen Phaeton fails its MOT most

Tonbridge area is highest at 32.7%; Sheffield area is lowest at 13.6% — the gap is 19.1 percentage points.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

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.

Volkswagen Phaeton survival: which cars are still on the road

By age 19 is well below the reference at 79.6%, against 100.0% at the ages 4–6 reference level.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Chart axes: car age, years · survival vs ages 4–6 · scale 0–105%.

By age 15, at least as many cars of this family present for MOT as at ages 4–6 (reference n≈137): the older fleet has not thinned out here, so there is no survivor selection to allow for.

How many miles does a Volkswagen Phaeton last?

100,000+ miles is highest at 55.6%; 150,000+ miles is lowest at 17.5% — the gap is 38.1 percentage points.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Of 6,929 tests of this family with a usable odometer in 2024, 55.6% had reached 100k miles, 17.5% had reached 150k miles. This is a cross-section of cars still presenting for MOT, not a full birth cohort.

How many years is a Volkswagen Phaeton likely to last?

Bought at age 8 is highest at 11.3 years; Bought at age 15 is lowest at 4.3 years — the gap is 7.0 years.

bigger number = longer remaining lifeyears on the observed survival curve

estimateEstimate only — not a warranty: a typical 10-year-old example of this family has at least 9.3 expected years of further MOT-present life. The curve is observed only until age 19, so the true figure is likely higher.

Volkswagen Phaeton faults that come together

Brakes + Emissions & leaks stand out at 4.95×, against 1.00× if the faults were independent.

above 1.0× = more than expectedbelow 1.0× = less

Defects in «Brakes» and «Noise, emissions and leaks» appear together 4.95× more often than chance (69 co-occurrences in the same test; 55 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).

Is low mileage better for a Volkswagen Phaeton?

Cars driven under 5,000 miles a year is well below the reference at 14.7%, against 22.7% for cars driven 8,000–12,000 miles a year.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

At matched ages 5–14, cars averaging under 5k miles/year fail at 14.7% vs 22.7% for 8–12k miles/year — 8.1 pp lower (n_low=505, n_normal=1,819). In this family low annual use is associated with fewer MOT fails, not more — the ‘garage queen’ penalty is not visible in overall fail rates. Diesel alone: 14.3% low-use vs 22.6% normal (-8.3 pp).

Which Volkswagen Phaeton engine is best?

petrol over 2.0 is highest at 107.5; diesel over 2.0 is lowest at 99.1 — the gap is 8.4 points.

below 100 is betterabove 100 is worse100 = normal for this model at that age

No engine band clearly fails less or more for its age: the bands are within 5 index points of each other, or their 95% intervals overlap, so this page does not name a best or worst engine.

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.

Volkswagen Phaeton MOT repair costs

The MOT-failure repair budget per test runs from £66.49 to £126.33, against £54.85 for the test itself.

bigger number = costs morepounds per test, MOT-failing faults only

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 £66 to £126, 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.

Volkswagen Phaeton running costs for a fleet

Vehicles failing at age 15 are close to the reference at 25.0%, against 24.0% at age 13, tested in the same year.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

No single year stands out as the point where this model starts costing more: the year-to-year steps in its failure rate are too small or rest on too few tests to name one (D1 rule: a step is named only with at least 2,000 tests on both sides and a jump above 3 percentage points).

Repair spend uses the same modal prices as the section above, so it inherits the same limits: one typical repair per component group, not a full remedy. Downtime is the gap between the failed test and the passed re-test, which is the window a vehicle is legally off the road.

Volkswagen Phaeton rust problems: where they corrode

Age-standardised corrosion susceptibility is well below the reference at 0.47×, against 1.00× for the national age-standardised rate.

above 1.0× = rusts more than averagebelow 1.0× = rusts less

This Volkswagen Phaeton fails on corrosion much less often than average once age is held constant, and its owners live in areas that are about typical for the models we publish. Both point the same way and reinforce each other: it resists corrosion even though its owners live in saltier areas than most.

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 a Volkswagen Phaeton advisory become a failure?

Brakes are highest at 12.1%; Suspension is lowest at 7.6% — the gap is 4.5 percentage points.

higher = more likelypercentage is the observed transition probability

chance the same component fails at the next MOT, given an advisory now

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 12 in 100 cars, and the median gap is 11.9 months and roughly 3,512 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 a Volkswagen Phaeton?

Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment after a failure at age 9-11 are highest at 19.1%; Visibility after a passed at age 6-8 is lowest at 4.0% — the gap is 15.1 percentage points.

higher = more likelypercentage is the observed transition probability

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.

Volkswagen Phaeton ownership: what six years of MOTs show

The ten-day re-test pass rate is highest at 68.6%; The later re-test pass rate is lowest at 5.7% — the gap is 62.9 percentage points.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Failing is usually a same-week event, not a disaster. Of 1,183 failures followed through to their re-test, 25.78% were repaired and passed the same day and 68.55% within ten days; the median gap is 1 day. 2,497 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 0.332 failures per 10,000 miles, on a median of 4,601 miles a year across 1,369 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. 39.57% of these cars strung together three or more tests with nothing recorded at all, while 25.08% 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: 5.891% of 1,375 chains show a reading lower than the previous test, with a median drop of 60,604 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.

Volkswagen Phaeton MOT: quick answers

Volkswagen Phaeton MOT Risk Index is well below the reference at 58.8, 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 Volkswagen Phaeton first-time MOT pass rate?

76.69% of first attempts passed in 2024 (841 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 23.31% figure is the first-time initial failure rate, using 841 primary tests as the denominator (first-time, excluding retests). The age-adjusted MOT initial-failure ratio 58.8 is shown separately because raw rates compare fleet age as well as cars.

Compare the Volkswagen Phaeton with other cars

Jaguar XK is highest at 59.1; Volkswagen Phaeton is lowest at 58.8 — the gap is 0.3 points.

below 100 is betterabove 100 is worse100 = normal for this model at that age

Same brand

All Volkswagen MOT statisticsVolkswagen T-Roc MOT statsVolkswagen e-up MOT stats

Similar risk

Jaguar I-Pace (index 59.1)Jaguar XJS (index 59.1)Jaguar XK (index 59.1)

Same size class

how Rolls-Royce Phantom compareshow Rolls-Royce Ghost compareshow Porsche Carrera compares

By area

Volkswagen Phaeton MOT failure rate by postcode area

By failure group

Volkswagen Phaeton body, chassis and structure failuresVolkswagen Phaeton brakes failuresVolkswagen Phaeton vehicle identification failuresVolkswagen Phaeton lamps, reflectors and electrics failuresVolkswagen Phaeton noise, emissions and leaks failuresVolkswagen Phaeton road wheels failuresVolkswagen Phaeton steering failuresVolkswagen Phaeton suspension failuresVolkswagen Phaeton tyres failuresVolkswagen Phaeton visibility failures