All generations and engines together · 112,169 MOT tests in the 2025 data · typical mileage at age 7: 71k
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. 51,410 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 water-cooled EGR cooler on the twin-turbo D4 diesel silts up with sooty deposits from the exhaust gas, usually throwing an engine management light or dropping the car into limp mode. Owners report the first symptoms anywhere from 47,000 to 135,000 miles; fixes range from a few hundred pounds for a valve or cooler under goodwill to £4,000-£11,000+ for a top-end rebuild or replacement engine once soot has spread through the intake. Volvo has run a safety recall on affected D4 engines over inlet manifolds melting and a fire risk linked to the same blocked system, and dealers have made partial or full goodwill payments on some out-of-warranty repairs.
Owners of Geartronic and Aisin automatic XC60s report jerky or delayed downshifts, gearboxes dropping into limp mode with a "transmission service required" warning, and occasional slipping, sometimes with no fault code found by the dealer. It has cropped up on cars from as low as 19,000 miles to well past 60,000, and one case needed a new TCM module at over £500. On the plug-in hybrid T8, several owners separately describe the box as laggy specifically in economy/hybrid drive mode.
Owners of 2017-on cars report the rear trailing arm bushes splitting from around 52,000 miles, needing a dealer repair (one owner quoted £540). This lines up with the measured MOT data for the large-SUV class, where suspension is the standout fault, though what's actually failing here is a bush wearing out on one arm rather than anything more structural, so a clunk on its own isn't a reason to panic.
On early D5 diesels, unburned fuel could enter the sump during DPF regeneration cycles, raising the oil level and diluting it, which risks accelerated engine wear if unnoticed over time. Volvo addressed it with a 2010 technical bulletin covering an ECU software reflash and an oil change; most affected cars will already have had this done, but it's worth confirming on the service history for 2008-2010 D5 cars specifically.
Several owners of 2008-2017 cars separately report tailgate gas struts weakening and eventually failing, leaving the tailgate unable to hold itself up, on a roughly four-year cycle. A dealer will typically charge £500-800 for genuine struts, though aftermarket ones can be found for £12-46 each. It isn't a safety recall, just a wear item that keeps recurring rather than being a one-off.
A handful of owners report water getting into the cabin, in one case from a windscreen that had de-bonded at around 45,000 miles, in another from the ceiling light cluster soaking the driver's floor mat, in both cases with water reaching nearby electrics. It isn't clear how common this really is versus isolated bad seals or bad luck, so treat it as worth checking rather than an established pattern.
Built from the two sections above.
Same segment (Family & large SUVs), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.
Head to head with the other popular cars in its class on reliability and common faults.