All generations and engines together · 2,053 MOT tests in the 2025 data
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. 2,053 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.
The five-cylinder 2.5-litre turbo is an interference engine, and the tensioner or idler pulley bearings can seize or fail independently of the belt itself, well before the quoted change interval. When it lets go the pistons meet the valves, so it is not a cheap fix: expect £3,000-£6,000 for a rebuilt or replacement engine. Volvo's own guidance is to change belt, tensioner, idler and water pump together as a full kit, not the belt alone, because owners who skipped the tensioner have had it fail and take the new belt with it.
On the D5, unburned fuel added during DPF regeneration can slip past the rings and thin the sump oil, especially on cars used mainly for short runs that never let the filter burn off properly. Owners see the oil level creeping up on the dipstick between changes; left unchecked it degrades lubrication and can shorten engine life. Volvo has addressed it with ECM software updates on some cars rather than a blanket recall, so it is worth asking whether the update has been done.
A repeated owner complaint on both petrol and D5 automatics: after 15-20 minutes of driving the box starts to clonk or judder changing down from 3rd to 2nd, and can hesitate going into drive from reverse. Forum consensus points at old, degraded transmission fluid as the main driver, with some cars needing a fluid change around 50k miles and others needing a solenoid or software fix. It is a known enough pattern that Honest John's own advice is to avoid a Geartronic car that feels anything less than smooth on a warm test drive.
The three-piece steel roof relies on hydraulic rams, cables and microswitches, and a trunk-lid sensor that blocks roof operation if it thinks the boot lid is open. Faults show up as a 'top not locked' warning or the roof stopping halfway, usually traced to a misaligned latch sensor rather than a major mechanical failure, and a specialist repair is commonly £300-£800. Owners are split on how serious this is: several long-term forum threads report no roof trouble at all over 100k+ miles, while others have had repeat sensor faults, so treat it as a possibility rather than a certainty.
A recurring niggle across both generations: window regulator cables tangle or the motor overruns its end stop, jamming or snapping the glass mechanism, and central locking modules (coded to the car, so cheap breaker-yard parts often will not simply plug in) can stick or unlock on their own. Repairs are modest individually, £150-£400 per door for a regulator, but they tend to crop up more than once across the car's life. Not manufacturer-acknowledged, but reported consistently enough across forums to flag.
Owners and clubs flag the C70's inner wheel arch seams, sill box sections and rear subframe mounting points as spots where factory underseal was thin, letting water in from behind the arch liners. This lines up with the measured MOT data for this segment, where corrosion is the standout fault: the folklore and the numbers agree on where to look, even though the exact panels blamed by forums are not separately broken out in the test data. Cavity wax and underseal treatment slow it down but do not stop it once it has started.
Built from the two sections above.
Same segment (Coupés, convertibles & GT), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.