Vehicle safety: Tüv and Co: Inspectors are finding more serious defects in cars

The condition of cars in Germany has deteriorated: Last year, during regular general inspections, inspectors certified a total of 144,074 cars as having dangerous defects or even declaring them unsafe for traffic. This emerges from current figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority.

That was 3.2 percent more than in the previous year – although slightly fewer cars were examined. 65.1 percent of the general inspections ended without any complaints – 0.6 percentage points less than in 2023.

In total, inspectors from Tüv, Dekra and Co. examined a good 22 million cars last year. They declared the car unsafe for traffic 11,700 times, which means that the car is no longer even allowed to drive out of the yard under its own power – this number actually fell slightly.

They saw dangerous defects 132,374 times. After the inspection, these vehicles may only be taken home or to the workshop and must be inspected after repairs.

The inspectors diagnosed significant defects 4.6 million times – these vehicles can still be driven, but must be repaired “immediately” and also brought in for a follow-up inspection. There were minor defects 2.0 million times and no defects were found 14.4 million times.

More older vehicles checked

An important reason for the increased number of serious defects could be that fewer relatively new and more old vehicles were presented for general inspection. What is likely to be noticeable here is that significantly fewer new cars have been purchased in recent years than in the previous period. There has also been a long-standing trend for the average vehicle age to rise.

Younger vehicles receive complaints much less often than old ones. 90 percent of cars aged zero to three years pass the HU without any complaints, those aged eight to nine years it is still 71 percent and for cars that are ten years or older, not even half.

If you take all types of vehicles – including motorcycles, trucks, trailers and the like – last year, inspectors found a total of 25.5 million defects in 31 million examinations, several hundred thousand more than a year ago and often several on the same vehicle. The most common complaints they made were about lights and electrical systems with 6.6 million defects, followed by the braking system with 4.6 million and the axles, wheels, tires and suspension areas with 4.3 million defects.