Vauxhall Mokka review - Reliability & safety

​It's all change for this generation of Mokka. Whereas the Mokka X was a GM product, the latest car falls under the new era of Stellantis ownership for Vauxhall, so it's now in the same family of cars as Peugeot, Citroen and DS, amongst others. Under the skin, the Mokka now shares an awful lot with the Peugeot 2008 and Citroen C3 Aircross.

Vauxhall Mokka reliability

Where reliability is concerned, the Mokka's French underpinnings should be a positive change. Whereas Vauxhall came 24th out of 32 brands in our 2023 Driver Power survey, Peugeot was ninth, with 23% of Vauxhall owners reporting a fault in the first year. 

The Mokka itself came 75th out of the 75 models included in 2023’s results, with fairly poor scores in most categories. Its best area was ride and handling, but it could only manage 69th for exterior quality. In more positive news, the Mokka’s 1.2-litre petrol and 1.5-litre diesel engines have also been used in numerous models with no signs of any significant issues, and the closely-related Peugeot 2008 came 53rd out of the top 75 cars in the survey. 

It will also be interesting to see how the all-electric Mokka Electric performs in the hands of customers in the long term, because with far fewer moving parts, electric cars have the potential to be very reliable. That's if it doesn't fall foul of electronic problems or technical glitches.

Safety

Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroen all have a good reputation for safety, so while there are few concerns here, a four-star Euro NCAP safety rating is slightly disappointing. In crash testing, the Mokka scored 73% and 75% in the adult and child occupant categories respectively. There's a full complement of driver's, passenger's, seat and side curtain airbags, along with ISOFIX child-seat mounting points with top tether mounts in the outer rear seats. 

To help avoid a collision occurring, autonomous emergency braking is fitted as standard across the trims, along with lane keeping and traffic-sign recognition. SRi trims gain a wide-angle rear-view camera and Ultimate Nav trim benefits from blind-spot alerts, front parking sensors and LED Matrix headlights that can adapt to the weather, road and traffic conditions.