All generations and engines together · 132,029 MOT tests in the 2025 data · typical mileage at age 7: 59k
Split by first-registration year. Cars registered in a changeover year can belong to either generation.
Computed from DVSA MOT results, all of Great Britain, 2025. Nothing here is opinion.
Share of tests where each item was recorded. The dark tick is the class average across all tracked models; bars are scaled within each group.
The rows that judge the model rather than its keeper. 57,462 tests in this band.
Tyres, pads and stone chips say more about how the car was driven and maintained than about how it was built.
Owner folklore from forums and the motoring press. Most of it never shows up in an MOT, which is why this section exists at all.
Owners of both generations report the dual-clutch S tronic box hunting for gears, hesitating from a standstill, or juddering under light throttle, sometimes described by dealers as normal 'roughness' rather than a fault. On the earlier car it shows up as an outright judder needing clutch pack replacement; on the newer 35 TSI cars it has shown as intermittent power loss when pulling away. No Audi TSB has been confirmed publicly, and some dealers have swapped units under goodwill rather than admit a pattern.
A run of owner reports on the first-generation Q3 describe manual clutches and gearboxes failing well before you'd expect wear to be a factor, including a clutch slave cylinder going at 20,000 miles and a clutch disintegrating at 49,000 miles badly enough to damage the transmission casing. One new 2.0 TFSI manual was also reported with swarf found inside the gearbox from the factory. Repair bills range from a few hundred pounds for a slave cylinder to well over £1,500 if the casing is damaged.
Owners on the first-generation car report front suspension bushes wearing and needing replacement unusually early, from around 18,000 miles, alongside surface rust forming on suspension components. The measured MOT data for this segment also flags suspension as the standout fault, so the folklore and the numbers point the same way here: this is a genuine weak point on the Q3, not just small-SUV wear and tear. Expect a bush or link replacement in the £150-400 range depending on which part has gone.
Both generations have owner reports of the infotainment unit playing up, from satnav modules failing outright and needing an expensive media unit swap on early cars, to sunroof drainage and roof leaks that soaked the centre console on later ones and needed repeated dealer visits to properly fix. These aren't universal complaints but they recur enough on forums and in Honest John's reader mailbag to be worth budgeting for out of warranty.
Higher-torque quattro and diesel Q3s use the heavier-duty DQ500 wet-clutch S tronic rather than the dry-clutch DQ200 fitted to lower-powered front-drive cars. It's a more robust design in principle, but it still relies on correct fluid and filter changes on the DSG service schedule; skipped services are a common cause of expensive failures on this transmission across the VW Group range. Front-wheel-drive petrol manuals and lower-powered automatics aren't affected by this specific box.
Second-generation Q3s fitted with the 1.5 TSI engine have shown a hesitation or flat spot when pulling away cold, reported by owners as a software calibration issue rather than a mechanical fault. This mirrors the well-documented 'kangarooing' problem on other VW Group cars with the same EA211 evo engine family, where VW Group has previously acknowledged the fault and issued a software update; Q3 owners have reported the same fix resolving it after a dealer visit, though it can take more than one attempt.
Built from the two sections above.
Same segment (Small SUVs), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.