The Peugeot 5008 you should buy is not the one you'll find cheapest

Search for a Peugeot 5008 on any used car site and the cheapest results are all the same: Mk1 diesels, 2010-2014, £3,000-5,000, high mileage. They look like bargains. The MOT data says they're not.

The Peugeot 5008's overall pass rate is 74.9%, below the 78% national average. But that single number hides one of the widest generational gaps we've found in the data. The Mk1 and Mk2 5008 share a name. In every way that matters at MOT time, they're different cars.

A 2010 5008 registered for its MOT in 2024 passes 62.3% of the time. A 2021 5008 passes 86.3%. Some of that is age and mileage; of course a 14-year-old car fails more than a 3-year-old one. But the jump isn't gradual. It happens at the generational boundary.

Look at the Mk1 years: 62%, 63%, 64%, 64%, 64%, 69%, 69%. Flat. The car isn't improving with the facelift years; it's stuck in the low-to-mid 60s regardless. Then 2017 arrives (the first year both Mk1 and Mk2 were sold) at 74%, and by 2018 it's 81.6%. That 12-point jump in a single year isn't ageing; it's a different car on a different platform.

The diesel question

The fuel split makes the generational gap even starker.

79% of all 5008 tests are diesels. The Mk1 was sold almost exclusively as a 1.6 HDi or 2.0 HDi. Petrol only became an option with the Mk2's 1.2 PureTech turbo. So the diesel figure is dragged down by the Mk1 fleet, while the petrol figure is almost entirely younger Mk2s.

This means the cheap 5008s on the market (the sub-£5,000 Mk1 diesels) are the ones with the worst MOT record. The 9.8 percentage point fuel gap is really a proxy for generation and age.

What actually goes wrong

The top three (suspension, tyres, brakes) are the standard heavy-family-car trifecta. At 1,500-1,700 kg with seven seats filled, every wear component works harder. The average 5008 has 71,343 miles on it. These are expected failures at that mileage.

The stop lamp issue (4th, 2.20%) is more specific: Mk1 5008s use LED rear light clusters where individual LEDs fail progressively until more than half are out, which is an MOT fail. Unlike a bulb that either works or doesn't, you don't notice LED degradation until the test. Replacements are £150-250 per side.

CV joint boots (5th, 2.13%) are the mileage marker. The rubber boot splits, grease escapes, grit gets in, and eventually the joint itself fails. At 70,000+ average miles on a front-wheel-drive diesel, this is textbook wear.

How it compares

No seven-seat MPV has a great MOT record. The segment averages below the national average because these are heavy cars doing heavy-duty work. But within the segment, the 5008 is mid-table:

Better than the Renaults, Fords, and Zafira. Worse than the VW/Seat twins, which benefit from a higher-quality build and (in the Sharan's case) a wealthier owner demographic that maintains more proactively. The Zafira at the bottom has the same problem as the 5008 but worse, with an ancient Mk1 fleet dragging the average into the red.

What this means if you're buying

The data makes the buying decision simple:

The price gap between a 2013 diesel and a 2018 petrol might be £5,000-8,000. The MOT data suggests the cheaper car will cost you more to keep roadworthy. That's not always the case with used cars, but when the pass rate gap is 20 percentage points, the data is hard to argue with.