Seat Leon years to avoid: the later ones

Based on 176,303 real MOT tests from DVSA records. Each year is compared against every other car first registered the same year — otherwise the numbers would only tell you that older cars fail more, which you knew.

The short answer

Avoid 2019 to 2020. The worst is the 2019, which fails its MOT 26% more often than other cars of the same age. The 2014 is the strongest, failing 25% less often than average.

Found a Seat Leon you like?

Averages tell you what to expect. Its registration tells you what actually happened — every MOT, every advisory, and whether the mileage adds up.

Every Leon model year

Shaded rows are the years that differ most from other cars of the same age — worse, better.

MOT failure rate by registration year for the Seat Leon
Registered	MOT tests	Fail rate	vs same-age cars
2003	1,358	30.8%	15% better
2004	1,726	31.7%	about average
2005	2,047	32.2%	about average
2006	3,533	37.8%	about average
2007	5,282	33.3%	about average
2008	5,405	33.3%	about average
2009	5,471	31.6%	about average
2010	6,319	30.7%	about average
2011	6,991	29.1%	about average
2012	9,248	25.5%	about average
2013	11,768	21.1%	18% better
2014	18,957	17.0%	25% better
2015	17,291	16.0%	18% better
2016	15,949	14.5%	about average
2017	18,273	13.5%	about average
2018	21,199	13.2%	about average
2019 Worst	18,281	12.9%	26% worse
2020	7,205	11.1%	21% worse

How this is worked out

Every MOT test recorded by DVSA in 2023 on a Seat Leon, grouped by the year the car was first registered. Retests are excluded, so a car that failed and was fixed still counts as a failure. Each year's rate is then divided by the rate for all cars first registered that year — so 120 means 20% more failures than its contemporaries, not 20% more than a brand new car.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.