All generations and engines together · 89,491 MOT tests in the 2025 data · typical mileage at age 7: 62k
Better than most small SUVs, by age and by mileage. Watch lights & electrics and suspension. A solid used buy, provided its MOT history has no repeating lights & electrics advisories.
Split by first-registration year. Cars registered in a changeover year can belong to either generation.
Owner folklore from forums and the motoring press, with how well each report stands up. Most of it never shows up in an MOT, which is why this section exists at all.
On early Mk1 cars (2016-2018ish), the windscreen's built-in DAB aerial has been linked to spontaneous overnight cracking with no impact or stone chip involved. Toyota acknowledged it as a manufacturing problem after a run of owner reports, and getting a replacement fitted under warranty could take up to four weeks; paid for privately it runs close to £900.
Like most Toyota hybrids, the C-HR's CVT lets the petrol engine flare to high revs and hold there under acceleration, producing a droning noise. Owners are split: some log it as a fault worth complaining about, others say it's simply how this transmission works and there's nothing to fix. It's present from new, not something that develops with age or mileage.
The small 12-volt battery that runs the lights, locks and infotainment while the hybrid system is dormant can lose condition early, in one reported case at just 9,000 miles, usually put down to short journeys that don't give the hybrid system enough runtime to keep it topped up. Symptoms are dim or flickering lights, dash warning lights, and a car that won't start even though the main hybrid battery is fine. This tracks with the measured data too: lights & electrics is the fault that shows up most often in this model's MOT record, and a tired 12V battery is exactly the kind of fault that produces failed bulbs and electrical warnings without anything mechanical actually breaking.
Some owners have found moisture building up inside the central infotainment screen, blurring the display, even on cars kept garaged. Toyota has replaced affected screens under warranty, but it isn't officially recognised as a design fault, and there are reports of it coming back after replacement. Out of warranty a new screen is roughly £900.
Toyota Safety Sense's pre-collision warning and city braking have been reported to trigger or misbehave for no obvious reason, and reviewers separately note the general run of warning chimes on this car can feel intrusive. Some owners treat sudden false alerts as a genuine electronic fault worth getting checked, others just find the systems over-cautious by design. Worth working out which camp you're in before you buy.
Ranked from this model’s own MOT record, then from what owners report.
Saveable checklistThe physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
The physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
Drawn from the reports above rather than the MOT data. These are the model-specific ones.
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. 40,549 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.
Same segment (Small SUVs), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.