Is Seat Reliable? What the APK and Roadworthiness Test Data Show

Seat, the Spanish brand within the Volkswagen Group, shares much of its engineering with its sister brands while cultivating a sportier, more affordable image. Here’s what the official inspection data shows in the Netherlands and in France — with a striking gap between a very poor brand average and recent models that perform far better.

In the Netherlands (APK)

The RDW (the Dutch vehicle authority) publishes the results of the APK (Algemene Periodieke Keuring, the Dutch equivalent of the roadworthiness test) as open data. Seat accounts for 295,435 tests across 23 models. Its average failure rate stands at 38.03%, against 37.54% for the Dutch fleet as a whole — barely half a point above average.

The breakdown by age is revealing: Seat is level with the national average, or slightly better, on cars under 11 years old, and only falls behind on older vehicles.

Age bracket	Seat	National average (NL)
3-5 years	22.87%	23.24%
5-8 years	27.29%	26.51%
8-11 years	31.88%	32.18%
11-15 years	41.74%	39.72%
15 years+	50.28%	47.50%

Here are the most tested Seat models (over 10,000 APKs each), with their failure rate in their main age bracket, compared with the national average for that same bracket:

Model (RDW)	Main age bracket	Seat failure rate	National average
Ateca	5-8 years	21.85%	26.51%
Mii	8-11 years	28.17%	32.18%
Arona	5-8 years	26.99%	26.51%
Leon ST	8-11 years	32.42%	32.18%
Altea	15 years+	49.48%	47.50%
Ibiza	15 years+	49.95%	47.50%
Leon	15 years+	49.96%	47.50%
Altea XL	11-15 years	45.48%	39.72%
Ibiza ST	11-15 years	46.36%	39.72%

The Ateca and the small Mii sit well below average, while the Arona and Leon ST are right on it. By contrast, the Ibiza — by far the most tested Seat in the country, with 92,579 APKs — and the Leon are above their bracket average, as are the Ibiza ST and Altea XL estates, at almost 6 points above. Among less common models, the large Tarraco SUV (19.73% vs 23.24%, from 3,316 tests) confirms how well the recent SUVs hold up, while the older Arosa, Toledo and Cordoba all exceed 52%. The Cupra Ateca and Cupra Leon still appear under the Seat brand in RDW data, but with fewer than 300 tests each — too few to draw any conclusion.

Two methodological caveats apply to these figures, as they do to all the APK rankings published on this site: the data is aggregated across all generations of each model (the RDW doesn’t natively distinguish between generations — so an “Ibiza” mixes every generation, from the oldest to the newest), and the pass/fail result isn’t published directly — it is inferred by cross-referencing test events with the defects recorded. All 23 Seat models tracked are listed on the Seat in the Netherlands page, and the Netherlands section has the full ranking.

In France (contrôle technique)

The French picture is considerably harsher. With a weighted average retest rate of 26.67% across 11 tracked model families (237,239 roadworthiness tests), Seat ranks last of the 38 brands in our 2025 Barometer, just behind Opel (26.42%). The national benchmark is 18.94%. The sample is far from small: this ranking isn’t the result of a limited number of tests.

Here are the 11 families, from most to least reliable:

Model	Retest rate	National rank (/530)
Arona	6.84%	57
Leon IV	11.41%	146
Ateca	17.37%	219
Ibiza V	21.07%	269
Leon III	26.76%	363
Leon II	28.29%	387
Leon I	28.29%	388
Altea	31.64%	435
Ibiza IV	33.07%	471
Ibiza III / Cordoba II	34.39%	491
Ibiza II / Cordoba I / Inca	34.39%	492

The three most recent models hold their own: the Arona (6.84%, 57th of 530 families) is among the better performers in the French fleet, and both the Leon IV (11.41%) and the Ateca (17.37%) stay below the national average. But the rest of the range weighs heavily: 7 of the 11 families exceed 25%, and the Ibiza IV — almost a quarter of all Seat tests recorded on its own — comes in at 33.07%. The Leon I and II, as well as the two oldest Ibiza generations, show exactly the same rate: the UTAC source appears to group them together, which explains the identical figures.

It’s the same pattern as in the Netherlands, only more pronounced: the brand average mostly reflects an ageing fleet of Ibizas and Leons, not the range on sale today.

Manufacturer recalls (France)

RappelConso lists 12 separate notices covering the Seat families tracked on this site, published between 2020 and 2024. Counted the same way as in our recalls by brand ranking (a recall counts once for each family it covers), that adds up to 49 cumulative recalls across all 11 families — 44.5 recalls per 10 models, which puts Seat 10th in that ranking. Eleven of these notices relate to a risk of injury, and only one to a fire risk.

As with other brands, most of these notices don’t specify the generation concerned and are therefore attached to every possible generation of a given model — hence the 8 recalls counted against each of the four Leon families. A recall doesn’t mean a defect affects every car, and it isn’t reflected in the retest rate.

What about the UK?

Seat families aren’t yet part of our model-by-model cross-country mapping, but the brand is well represented in British MOT data. And the contrast is striking: Seat fails 25.88% of the time there, placing it 8th of 29 brands. Measurement methods differ from one country to another (see our article on comparing countries’ tests), but the gap is a reminder that a brand ranking depends heavily on the make-up of the fleet being tested. The details are on the Seat in the UK page.

Key takeaways before buying

The retest rate or APK failure rate measures compliance with the safety points checked, not overall mechanical reliability — see the full methodology. On this measure, Seat comes last in France and sits slightly above average in the Netherlands. But in both countries, it’s the numerous older Ibizas and Leons that drag the average down. Recent models — the Arona, Leon IV and Ateca in France, the Ateca, Mii and Tarraco in the Netherlands — do far better. On the used market, the generation matters more than the badge. The full details, including running costs, are on the Seat brand page.

Data sources: RDW (Netherlands, CC0 licence), UTAC-OTC (France, 2025), DVSA MOT testing data (United Kingdom, Open Government Licence v3.0), RappelConso (data.gouv.fr). Full methodology on the methodology page.