Every two to three years, a car has to undergo a general inspection – and according to the TÜV association, every fifth vehicle has recently failed. Around 69 percent of the vehicles came to the test bench without any defects, and minor defects were found in almost 11 percent.

The “failure” rate rose by 2.3 percentage points to 20.2 percent compared to the previous year, as reported by the association of TÜV testing organizations.

If a vehicle fails the general inspection, the defects found must be remedied and the vehicle returned to the inspection center within four weeks. According to the TÜV association, a small proportion of 0.05 percent of the cars checked were classified as roadworthy and were no longer allowed to drive on.

0.5 percent of the vehicles had to go directly to the workshop with dangerous defects. This is the case when the TÜV experts determine, for example, porous brake hoses, badly worn tires or all brake lights failing.

And these are the detailed results of the current TÜV report:

For the TÜV report, 9.6 million main inspections between July 2021 and June 2022 were taken into account, the actual number of main inspections carried out is significantly higher. New cars have to have their first main inspection after three years, after which the inspection is necessary every two years.

Every year, TÜV, DEKRA and GTÜ check the defect rate of used cars with new statistics. FOCUS Online evaluates all available reports for you. Here you will find the most recent overviews from 2016.

On our e-mobility portal EFAHRER.com you will find all e-vehicles available on the German market

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