Mercedes-Benz 208 MOT reliability

Mercedes-Benz 208s passed their MOT first time 60% of the time across 388 tests in 2025.

Example photo of a Mercedes-Benz 208 — Photo: Rudolf Stricker · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

First-time pass rate

60%

MOTs analysed

388

Still licensed (GB)

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Body type

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Pass rate by year of first registration

Older cars fail more often, so compare a car with others of the same age. Years with very few MOTs can show extreme pass rates, even 0% or 100%, so give more weight to years with more tests.

In detail:

First registered

2006 diesel

2 MOTs

These figures come from only 2 MOT tests. With so few cars, a single pass or fail changes the percentages a lot, so treat them as a rough guide rather than a true average.

Passed first time 50%. Typical mileage 127,286 (most between 95,092 and 159,479).

2021: 100% → 2022: 50% → 2023: 100% → 2024: 0% → 2025: 50%

Most common failures

Headlamp aim: projected beam image is obviously incorrect (50.0%)
Brake pads: less than 1.5 mm thick (50.0%)
Rear fog lamp: not working (50.0%)

Where 2006 208s fail

Brakes

50.0%

Lights & electrics

50.0%

Looking at a particular car?

See its own MOT history, mileage and red flags, compared with these figures. Free.

Based on 2025 initial MOT tests in DVSA's anonymised MOT dataset (cars and light vans). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Model details: Vehicle data by VehiclesDB.