Exhaustive Data on Car MoT Failure Rates is Invaluable For Insurers -

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Luckily CarCostCheck has done the hard yards on this research. Some key things stand out; Tesla have a high fail rate at their first MoT which suggests a lack of routine maintenance, or drivers ignoring problems. Secondly, Scotland’s harsher weather tends to damage vehicles faster. Third, income plays a part, with the Home Counties of outer London having a better MoT pass rate, and probably more money spent on servicing cars too.

Here’s the massive dataset FYI;

The 10 postcode areas with the highest MOT failure rates in 2025 and the 10 with the lowest, out of 118. Rates are adjusted for car age; the national rate is 27.7%. The full table of all 118 areas is further down.

Source: CarCostCheck analysis of DVSA anonymised MOT test results, 2025. Class 4 vehicles, first attempt at each MOT. Area = postcode area of the MOT test centre. Areas on the same rate are ordered by the unrounded figure. Download the data (CSV).
Rank	Postcode area	Fail rate (age-adjusted)	Raw fail rate	MOT tests	Note
1	KY Kirkcaldy (Fife)	38.6%	36.2%	186,846	Worst 10
2	DD Dundee	38.6%	34.9%	136,142	Worst 10
3	AB Aberdeen	36.0%	32.0%	254,223	Worst 10
4	ZE Shetland	35.3%	30.8%	12,371	Worst 10
5	PA Paisley	34.8%	30.7%	152,348	Worst 10
6	ML Motherwell	34.3%	29.2%	164,951	Worst 10
7	FK Falkirk	34.3%	29.8%	143,750	Worst 10
8	PH Perth	33.9%	30.5%	98,519	Worst 10
9	EH Edinburgh	33.3%	30.0%	418,730	Worst 10
10	BS Bristol	33.0%	34.0%	575,454	Worst 10
109	CR Croydon	22.6%	22.2%	225,813	Best 10
110	EN Enfield	22.3%	21.7%	195,404	Best 10
111	KT Kingston upon Thames	22.1%	21.5%	277,434	Best 10
112	TW Twickenham	22.1%	21.5%	243,664	Best 10
113	HA Harrow	21.6%	21.5%	200,021	Best 10
114	RM Romford	21.3%	20.6%	270,154	Best 10
115	IG Ilford	21.2%	20.0%	145,784	Best 10
116	SL Slough	21.1%	21.5%	238,810	Best 10
117	UB Southall and Uxbridge	20.5%	20.7%	204,590	Best 10
118	SM Sutton	20.3%	21.0%	74,585	Best 10

DVSA publishes the result of every MOT test in Great Britain as open data. We took the full set for tests carried out in 2025, which DVSA released on 22 June 2026, kept the first attempt at each MOT and ranked every postcode area and the main car brands. The area figures are adjusted for the age of the cars tested, so an area is not marked down just because its cars are older. The full tables are free to download as a CSV file. For what the cars failed on, from brakes and tyres to dangerous defects, area by area, see our MOT failure reasons 2025 study.

Key findings

27.7% failed at the first attempt. Of 33,210,951 first-attempt MOT tests on class 4 vehicles in 2025, 9,193,623 ended in a fail. That includes 1,745,661 tests (5.3% of all tests) where the faults were fixed at the test centre within an hour. The rate was 28.3% in 2024.
Scotland has the highest MOT failure rates. 9 of the 10 postcode areas with the highest age-adjusted fail rates are in Scotland (all 10 if vans are left out), led by KY Kirkcaldy (Fife) and DD Dundee on 38.6%, AB Aberdeen on 36.0% and ZE Shetland on 35.3%. Across the 16 Scottish areas, vehicles failed 22% more often than the national rate for their age.
Outer London has the lowest. All 10 of the lowest areas are in outer London or on its edge, from SM Sutton (20.3%) and UB Southall and Uxbridge (20.5%) to CR Croydon (22.6%).
Almost twice the risk. A car tested in Fife or Dundee was 1.9 times as likely to fail as a car of the same age tested in Sutton.
First MOT: 11.8% of vehicles failed their first MOT (1,514,228 tests), or 10.8% for cars alone. Of the 30 car brands with at least 5,000 first MOTs, Tesla (15.9%) and MG (14.3%) failed most often and Lexus (4.8%) and Honda (6.0%) least often.
At 10 years old: Dacia (43.1%) and Renault (41.5%) cars failed most often and Porsche (12.1%) and Lexus (15.6%) least often, against 29.3% for all cars of that age.
Fail rates rise sharply with age. The fail rate climbs from 11.8% at the first MOT to 30.0% at 10 years old and peaks at 42.9% at 18 years old.
Still falling in 2026. DVSA’s published figures for January to June 2026 show 27.0% of first-attempt tests on class 3 and 4 vehicles failing, against 27.6% in the same months of 2025, and April to June 2026 had the lowest quarterly rate in DVSA’s table (26.75%). Tyre failures went the other way.

Why are MOT failure rates highest in Scotland?

Scottish postcode areas take 9 of the 10 worst places. Shetland (ZE) is 4th on 35.3%, Glasgow (G) is 19th of 118 on 32.0% and the Outer Hebrides (HS) sit mid-table on 29.3%. Taken together, the 16 Scottish areas had an age-adjusted fail rate of 33.7% across 2,605,378 tests, against 27.7% for Great Britain. Leave vans out and all 10 of the worst areas are Scottish: Bristol drops to 11th and Kilmarnock (KA) takes 10th place.

The raw figures hide how far ahead Scotland is, because the vehicles tested there are younger. The average vehicle tested in the nine Scottish areas in the worst 10 was 8.1 to 9.2 years old, against 10.1 years across Great Britain. Younger cars should fail less, so once age is allowed for, the gap grows. In ML (Motherwell), for example, 29.2% of tests failed, only a little above the national 27.7%. But vehicles of the ages tested there would be expected to fail 23.6% of the time, so tests there failed 24% more often than expected, which gives an age-adjusted rate of 34.3%.

The data cannot tell us why. Explanations often given include road salt and wet weather, which speed up corrosion of brakes, suspension and underbody parts; the state of local roads; how far and how cars are driven; and differences in how strictly testers apply the rules. The pattern is not a one-off: on 2024 data, worked out the same way for areas with at least 20,000 tests, DD Dundee (39.8%), KY Fife (39.3%) and AB Aberdeen (36.8%) were also the three worst.

Outside Scotland, the highest rates were in Bristol, the South West of England and mid Wales: BS Bristol is 10th (33.0%), EX Exeter 12th (32.7%), PL Plymouth 13th (32.5%) and LD Llandrindod Wells 14th (32.4%).

Where are cars least likely to fail the MOT?

The 10 lowest age-adjusted rates are all in outer London and on its edge: SM Sutton (20.3%), UB Southall and Uxbridge (20.5%), SL Slough (21.1%), IG Ilford (21.2%), RM Romford (21.3%), HA Harrow (21.6%), KT Kingston upon Thames (22.1%), TW Twickenham (22.1%), EN Enfield (22.3%) and CR Croydon (22.6%). SM Sutton was also the lowest on 2024 data (21.0%). London’s E, N, NW, SE, SW and W postal areas together come in at 23.4%. Leaving vans out makes no difference to which 10 areas are lowest.

Remember that DVSA records where the test centre is, not where the car is kept. A car that lives in one area and is tested in the next counts towards the area of the garage that tested it.

Every postcode area ranked by MOT failure rate, 2025

All 118 postcode areas in the data, highest first. Rates are adjusted for car age; the national rate is 27.7%. Shaded rows are the worst 10 and best 10. The area is where the test centre is, not where the keeper lives.

Source: CarCostCheck analysis of DVSA anonymised MOT test results, 2025. Class 4 vehicles, first attempt at each MOT. Area = postcode area of the MOT test centre. Areas on the same rate are ordered by the unrounded figure. Download the data (CSV).
Rank	Postcode area	Fail rate (age-adjusted)	Raw fail rate	MOT tests	Note
1	KY Kirkcaldy (Fife)	38.6%	36.2%	186,846	Worst 10
2	DD Dundee	38.6%	34.9%	136,142	Worst 10
3	AB Aberdeen	36.0%	32.0%	254,223	Worst 10
4	ZE Shetland	35.3%	30.8%	12,371	Worst 10
5	PA Paisley	34.8%	30.7%	152,348	Worst 10
6	ML Motherwell	34.3%	29.2%	164,951	Worst 10
7	FK Falkirk	34.3%	29.8%	143,750	Worst 10
8	PH Perth	33.9%	30.5%	98,519	Worst 10
9	EH Edinburgh	33.3%	30.0%	418,730	Worst 10
10	BS Bristol	33.0%	34.0%	575,454	Worst 10
11	KA Kilmarnock	32.8%	29.2%	178,062
12	EX Exeter	32.7%	35.2%	374,364
13	PL Plymouth	32.5%	35.3%	339,364
14	LD Llandrindod Wells	32.4%	34.4%	28,363
15	LN Lincoln	32.2%	32.2%	188,482
16	TR Truro	32.1%	34.9%	203,226
17	SR Sunderland	32.1%	30.5%	110,602
18	SP Salisbury	32.0%	33.8%	158,954
19	G Glasgow	32.0%	27.8%	532,312
20	FY Blackpool	31.7%	32.2%	141,280
21	HU Hull	31.7%	31.1%	231,592
22	CF Cardiff	31.6%	31.3%	539,734
23	IV Inverness	31.5%	29.0%	143,005
24	BA Bath	31.4%	33.3%	281,050
25	BN Brighton	31.1%	32.8%	402,124
26	SA Swansea	31.1%	31.3%	420,193
27	DL Darlington	31.1%	30.1%	192,390
28	TQ Torquay	31.0%	34.5%	169,212
29	HD Huddersfield	30.9%	29.2%	136,701
30	PO Portsmouth	30.7%	32.6%	470,819
31	TD Galashiels (Borders)	30.6%	28.9%	63,580
32	CH Chester	30.6%	30.3%	369,836
33	NP Newport	30.5%	31.0%	290,356
34	WN Wigan	30.2%	29.6%	154,429
35	YO York	30.2%	29.5%	315,714
36	BH Bournemouth	30.0%	32.0%	348,639
37	TA Taunton	29.9%	32.7%	216,962
38	NN Northampton	29.5%	29.3%	451,667
39	CA Carlisle	29.4%	28.1%	197,984
40	DT Dorchester	29.4%	33.2%	130,328
41	HX Halifax	29.4%	29.4%	83,006
42	GL Gloucester	29.3%	30.7%	410,480
43	HS Outer Hebrides	29.3%	28.7%	14,821
44	KW Kirkwall	29.1%	28.8%	27,954
45	ST Stoke-on-Trent	29.0%	28.7%	369,699
46	TS Cleveland (Teesside)	29.0%	28.4%	308,110
47	LA Lancaster	28.8%	29.2%	180,333
48	LS Leeds	28.7%	28.1%	373,028
49	SK Stockport	28.7%	27.1%	335,237
50	HG Harrogate	28.6%	26.1%	93,386
51	CW Crewe	28.6%	27.4%	201,472
52	SN Swindon	28.5%	29.1%	295,929
53	WA Warrington	28.4%	26.7%	340,511
54	NG Nottingham	28.4%	28.8%	615,020
55	WD Watford	28.2%	26.0%	131,712
56	LL Llandudno	28.2%	29.9%	317,392
57	NE Newcastle upon Tyne	28.1%	26.8%	556,768
58	SO Southampton	28.1%	28.9%	406,702
59	WS Walsall	28.0%	28.3%	238,943
60	PR Preston	27.9%	27.3%	305,262
61	DN Doncaster	27.9%	28.0%	433,645
62	NR Norwich	27.8%	29.4%	456,336
63	CT Canterbury	27.7%	29.0%	256,658
64	SY Shrewsbury	27.6%	28.4%	225,103
65	CB Cambridge	27.6%	28.3%	235,624
66	GU Guildford	27.6%	27.7%	452,871
67	IP Ipswich	27.5%	29.0%	395,402
68	DH Durham	27.4%	26.3%	165,399
69	TF Telford	27.4%	28.2%	126,213
70	OX Oxford	27.4%	28.0%	371,977
71	CO Colchester	27.2%	28.6%	263,541
72	TN Tonbridge	27.0%	27.9%	444,593
73	L Liverpool	26.8%	26.1%	363,242
74	HR Hereford	26.5%	28.1%	124,342
75	WR Worcester	26.5%	27.1%	195,980
76	WF Wakefield	26.5%	26.3%	294,917
77	PE Peterborough	26.5%	27.0%	617,566
78	OL Oldham	26.3%	25.7%	228,131
79	BL Bolton	26.3%	25.0%	254,321
80	M Manchester	26.2%	27.1%	498,510
81	SG Stevenage	26.1%	25.8%	243,187
82	DG Dumfries	26.1%	25.6%	77,764
83	MK Milton Keynes	26.0%	25.7%	349,905
84	WV Wolverhampton	25.8%	25.8%	224,384
85	RH Redhill	25.5%	26.0%	346,607
86	DY Dudley	25.4%	26.1%	225,479
87	DE Derby	25.3%	25.1%	458,684
88	CM Chelmsford	25.3%	24.3%	399,676
89	AL St Albans	25.2%	24.0%	147,229
90	ME Medway (Rochester)	25.2%	25.7%	355,113
91	LE Leicester	25.2%	25.8%	588,996
92	RG Reading	25.1%	25.2%	506,660
93	BD Bradford	25.0%	25.9%	295,454
94	CV Coventry	24.9%	25.0%	490,787
95	HP Hemel Hempstead	24.6%	24.7%	321,135
96	S Sheffield	24.4%	24.7%	748,928
97	BB Blackburn	24.2%	24.4%	288,425
98	SE London SE	24.0%	24.5%	260,860
99	LU Luton	23.9%	25.1%	219,134
100	W London W	23.9%	22.4%	89,445
101	SW London SW	23.8%	22.8%	143,569
102	NW London NW	23.4%	21.3%	222,593
103	B Birmingham	23.3%	24.0%	1,038,690
104	DA Dartford	23.3%	22.2%	244,477
105	BR Bromley	23.1%	21.0%	120,159
106	SS Southend-on-Sea	22.9%	23.2%	291,372
107	E London E	22.8%	22.3%	268,226
108	N London N	22.7%	23.1%	224,124
109	CR Croydon	22.6%	22.2%	225,813	Best 10
110	EN Enfield	22.3%	21.7%	195,404	Best 10
111	KT Kingston upon Thames	22.1%	21.5%	277,434	Best 10
112	TW Twickenham	22.1%	21.5%	243,664	Best 10
113	HA Harrow	21.6%	21.5%	200,021	Best 10
114	RM Romford	21.3%	20.6%	270,154	Best 10
115	IG Ilford	21.2%	20.0%	145,784	Best 10
116	SL Slough	21.1%	21.5%	238,810	Best 10
117	UB Southall and Uxbridge	20.5%	20.7%	204,590	Best 10
118	SM Sutton	20.3%	21.0%	74,585	Best 10

MOT failure rate at first MOT by car brand

A car’s first MOT is due on the third anniversary of its registration, and most are done in the month before. This table counts tests carried out between 1,020 and 1,139 days after a car was first registered, the window that holds the first MOT peak, so it is mostly cars first registered in 2022. It covers cars only (vans, pickups and van-based people carriers are left out; see below) and brands with at least 5,000 first MOTs, highest fail rate first.

Source: CarCostCheck analysis of DVSA anonymised MOT test results, 2025. Cars only, first attempt at the first MOT. All cars: 10.8% of 1,376,602 tests, 25,917 miles on average. Download the data (CSV).
Rank	Brand	First MOT fail rate	First MOTs	Average miles
1	Tesla	15.9%	46,101	37,320
2	MG	14.3%	45,249	27,191
3	Hyundai	13.2%	69,473	25,255
4	BMW	12.9%	90,364	29,715
5	Vauxhall	12.5%	68,935	21,960
6	Dacia	12.5%	22,831	22,599
7	Polestar	12.4%	6,799	35,464
8	Mercedes-Benz	11.9%	67,347	29,079
9	Peugeot	11.6%	44,381	23,946
10	Renault	11.4%	27,016	22,150
11	Kia	11.3%	85,648	27,506
12	Citroen	11.3%	23,187	22,347
13	SEAT	11.3%	18,926	25,936
14	Land Rover	11.2%	37,297	28,818
15	Fiat	10.7%	18,830	17,206
16	Skoda	10.5%	43,197	29,611
17	Cupra	10.5%	12,746	27,330
18	MINI	10.1%	39,693	20,061
19	Volkswagen	10.0%	112,798	26,373
20	Audi	9.9%	94,157	27,367
21	Volvo	9.7%	31,638	30,966
22	Nissan	9.5%	67,071	23,132
23	Ford	9.4%	102,975	23,140
24	Jaguar	8.8%	10,585	26,195
25	Mazda	8.2%	21,993	22,927
26	Toyota	7.9%	85,667	25,156
27	Suzuki	7.4%	15,823	21,410
28	Porsche	7.3%	13,830	21,034
29	Honda	6.0%	21,664	19,933
30	Lexus	4.8%	8,891	24,259

Tesla tops the list at 15.9% of 46,101 first MOTs. Its cars had also covered more miles by their first MOT than any other brand in the table: 37,320 on average, against 25,917 for all cars. More miles mean more wear on tyres, brakes and suspension, and these figures are not adjusted for mileage, so part of the gap may come from how hard the cars are used rather than how they are built. Our electric car MOT failure rates study does allow for mileage: against other electric cars with the same mileage, Teslas still failed more often, but by about 10%. MG (14.3%), Hyundai (13.2%) and BMW (12.9%) follow. At the other end, Lexus (4.8%), Honda (6.0%), Porsche (7.3%), Suzuki (7.4%) and Toyota (7.9%) had the fewest fails.

Why vans are left out. Class 4 covers light vans up to 3,000kg, many sold under car brands, and vans fail their first MOT far more often than cars. Counting them makes some brands look much worse: with vans included, Citroen’s first MOT fail rate rises from 11.3% to 16.6% (vans are 32.1% of its first MOTs) and Ford’s from 9.4% to 13.8% (36.6% vans). Peugeot (11.6% to 14.3%), Vauxhall (12.5% to 14.9%) and Renault (11.4% to 13.3%) move by smaller amounts. The download has both versions.

MOT failure rate at 10 years old by car brand

This table covers cars that were 10 years old when tested (10 years to just under 11 years since first registration), so it is mostly cars first registered in 2014 and 2015. Cars only, brands with at least 5,000 tests at that age, highest fail rate first.

Source: CarCostCheck analysis of DVSA anonymised MOT test results, 2025. Cars only, first attempt at each MOT. All cars aged 10: 29.3% of 2,222,939 tests, 80,352 miles on average. Download the data (CSV).
Rank	Brand	Fail rate at 10 years	MOT tests	Average miles
1	Dacia	43.1%	20,478	78,170
2	Renault	41.5%	61,389	75,108
3	Citroen	38.0%	69,010	73,119
4	Vauxhall	36.5%	235,955	79,211
5	Fiat	35.2%	61,022	59,622
6	Peugeot	34.0%	86,757	72,983
7	Ford	33.6%	288,057	77,287
8	Nissan	33.4%	133,127	75,757
9	Jeep	31.4%	6,212	83,958
10	Kia	30.4%	68,918	74,257
11	SEAT	30.1%	43,267	85,638
12	Mitsubishi	29.5%	18,013	91,829
13	Hyundai	29.4%	69,925	71,051
14	Volvo	29.0%	36,357	98,584
15	Mazda	29.0%	36,149	78,213
16	Suzuki	27.5%	32,339	62,509
17	Skoda	25.9%	64,184	87,543
18	Volkswagen	25.1%	186,799	83,617
19	Mercedes-Benz	24.5%	109,329	90,576
20	Toyota	23.1%	95,919	87,601
21	Audi	22.8%	134,547	90,234
22	Jaguar	22.7%	17,392	81,047
23	BMW	21.8%	129,507	93,422
24	Land Rover	20.7%	59,365	89,159
25	MINI	19.6%	55,942	68,344
26	Honda	19.2%	49,650	72,031
27	Lexus	15.6%	10,543	89,476
28	Porsche	12.1%	9,178	64,755

Dacia (43.1%) and Renault (41.5%) had the highest fail rates at 10 years old, followed by Citroen (38.0%) and Vauxhall (36.5%). Porsche (12.1%), Lexus (15.6%), Honda (19.2%), MINI (19.6%) and Land Rover (20.7%) had the lowest. Lexus, Land Rover, BMW and Audi cars had all covered more miles than the average 10-year-old car (89,000 to 93,000 miles, against 80,352) and still failed less often than average, which may say as much about how they are serviced as how they are built. Porsches had covered fewer miles than average (64,755). An MOT fail rate shows how often a car met the MOT standard on the day it was tested. It reflects servicing, use and mileage as well as build quality, so it is a guide to the odds, not a verdict on any one car.

MOT failure rates by car age

Across all 33.2 million tests, the chance of failing rises steadily with age until the late teens. Age is whole years from first registration to the date of the test.

Age when tested (years)	Fail rate	MOT tests
3	12.2%	1,704,464
4	13.6%	1,781,827
5	15.5%	2,128,949
6	18.1%	2,429,139
7	20.7%	2,387,227
8	23.7%	2,649,304
9	26.9%	2,589,290
10	30.0%	2,425,551
11	33.1%	2,151,476
12	35.5%	1,847,290
13	37.8%	1,579,137
14	39.8%	1,448,473
15	41.4%	1,345,725
16	42.5%	1,045,634
17	42.7%	983,445
18	42.9%	800,425
19	42.7%	601,449
20	42.4%	456,695
21 to 30	39.1%	1,180,050
31 to 40	27.9%	155,696
41 to 60	17.9%	37,792

Most first MOTs are done in the weeks before a car’s third birthday, so they fall in the 2-year-old group (11.2% fail) rather than the 3-year-old group, which is mostly second MOTs. Our first MOT figure of 11.8% counts tests by their timing instead. Fail rates fall for cars over 20, most likely because the cars still on the road at that age tend to be cherished. Cars over 40 years old can be exempt from the MOT, so many of those tested are put forward by choice.

The national picture: what is the average MOT failure rate?

Tests: 33,210,951 first-attempt MOT tests on class 4 vehicles in 2025, of which 24,017,328 passed and 9,193,623 failed: an initial fail rate of 27.68%.
Fixed on the spot: 1,745,661 of the fails (about 1 in 5) were put right at the test centre within an hour and then passed. DVSA still counts these as initial fails, and so do we.
Checked against DVSA: adding up DVSA’s own published quarterly figures for class 3 and 4 vehicles tested in the same 12 months gives an initial fail rate of 27.64%, within 0.04 points of ours.
Year on year: worked out the same way, the 2024 figure was 28.3% (33,090,067 tests), so the national rate fell by 0.6 points.
Not included: retests, and vehicles tested in other MOT classes: motorcycles, small three-wheelers, buses with more than 12 passenger seats and goods vehicles between 3,000kg and 3,500kg.

Our 2025 test count is about 1 million higher than the total of DVSA’s published quarterly figures for the year. That is because DVSA’s published July to September 2025 figure (7,545,326 tests) is almost identical to its April to June figure (7,545,188), while the raw data holds 8,626,750 first-attempt class 4 tests for July to September. The other three quarters match the raw data closely.

DVSA’s own files point the same way: its table of failures by defect gives July to September 2025 a different initial fail rate (27.41%), and its total for April 2025 to March 2026 (33,310,534 tests) is 1,089,188 higher than its four quarters add up to.

MOT failure rates in 2026 so far

DVSA has not yet released test-by-test data for 2026, so the area and brand tables above cannot be repeated for this year. It does publish quarterly totals in its MOT testing data for Great Britain, and the latest update, on 10 September 2026, runs to the end of June 2026. The figures in this section are DVSA’s published figures for class 3 and 4 vehicles (cars, vans and passenger vehicles with up to 12 seats), not our own analysis of the test-level data.

From January to June 2026, 4,543,891 of 16,831,973 first-attempt MOT tests on class 3 and 4 vehicles ended in a fail: 27.0%. In the same months of 2025 the rate was 27.6% (4,550,317 of 16,512,377 tests), so the fail rate is 0.6 points lower so far this year. April to June 2026, at 26.75%, has the lowest initial fail rate of any quarter in DVSA’s table, which gives quarterly figures from April 2019. Fail rates tend to be higher from October to December (28.20% in 2025), so a half-year figure should be compared with the same months of an earlier year, not with our full-year 2025 figure of 27.7%.

Source: DVSA, MOT testing data for Great Britain, table DVSA/MOT/01 (MOT test results by class of vehicle), updated 10 September 2026. Classes 3 and 4: cars, vans and passenger vehicles with up to 12 seats. Initial tests only, not retests or abandoned tests; a pass after rectification at the test station counts as an initial fail. The January to June row adds the two quarters together.
Months	2026 fail rate	2025 fail rate	2026 tests	2025 tests
January to March	27.21%	27.83%	9,023,379	8,967,189
April to June	26.75%	27.24%	7,808,594	7,545,188
January to June	27.00%	27.56%	16,831,973	16,512,377

Tyres went against the trend. In April to June 2026, 6.55% of class 3 and 4 tests found at least one tyre defect serious enough to fail, up from 6.23% a year earlier, and 4.64% found a dangerous tyre defect, up from 4.42%. Failures for lamps and electrical equipment (9.98%, down from 10.36%), suspension (8.21%, from 8.65%) and brakes (5.83%, from 6.10%) all fell. These figures are from DVSA’s table of initial failures by defect category for class 3 and 4 vehicles (DVSA/MOT/03).

What does age-standardised mean?

Older cars fail more often, and some areas test older cars than others. If we only counted fails, an area full of 15-year-old cars would look worse than one full of 4-year-old cars even if every car in both was equally well looked after.

So for each area we worked out how many fails there would have been if its cars had failed at the national rate for their age, and compared that with the number that actually failed. In KY (Fife), 67,577 tests failed against about 48,479 expected for cars of those ages: 1.39 times as many. Multiply the national rate of 27.7% by 1.39 and you get the age-adjusted rate of 38.6%. In SM (Sutton), 15,673 failed against about 21,427 expected, 0.73 times as many, which gives 20.3%. The adjustment covers age only; it does not allow for mileage, or for the makes and models in each area.

How to check a car’s MOT history before you buy

Area and brand averages tell you about the odds. The MOT record of the car in front of you tells you far more, and it is free to check.

Look up the full MOT history. Enter the registration in the free car check on our homepage or use our MOT history check to see every test since 2005, with each fail and advisory.
Look for patterns. The same item failing year after year, advisories that turn into fails the next year, and corrosion advisories on brakes, suspension or the underside are all worth asking about. Our guide to the most common MOT failures explains what each area of the test covers.
Check the mileage. Each MOT records the odometer reading, so a drop between tests or a long gap with no MOT needs an explanation.
Check what the MOT does not cover. The MOT does not look for outstanding finance, write-offs or unfixed recalls. Our £4.99 history check adds outstanding finance with the lender and agreement details, the write-off category with the date and cause, the police stolen record and the keepers with the date of each change. It is a one-off payment with no subscription, offered on the free report page. Our guide to a free car check in the UK explains what you can check for free and when a paid history check is worth it.

For pass and fail rates by individual model, see our MOT failure rates by car model page. It ranks models on an earlier year of DVSA data and includes retests, so its figures are not directly comparable with the first-attempt figures here.

Download the data (CSV): every postcode area, both brand tables with and without vans, and the national figures by age.

Methodology

Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test results for tests carried out between 1 January and 31 December 2025, published by DVSA on 22 June 2026 (42,728,066 test records).
Vehicles: class 4 only. That is mainly cars and light vans (goods vehicles up to 3,000kg design gross weight), plus taxis, private hire vehicles, motor caravans and some other small passenger vehicles.
First attempt only: normal tests (DVSA test type NT). Retests and appeals are left out, because retests almost always pass. Abandoned, aborted and refused tests (202,432) have no pass or fail result, so they are left out too.
What counts as a fail: a test recorded as a fail, or as a pass after rectification at station (PRS), where the car failed but was fixed within an hour of the test. This is how DVSA works out its own initial fail rate.
Areas: DVSA records the postcode area of the MOT test centre, not the keeper’s address. To avoid identifying single garages, DVSA merges areas with fewer than five active test centres under the code XX. We show all 118 areas with at least 10,000 tests, from Shetland (ZE, 12,371 tests) to Birmingham (B, 1,038,690); only the merged XX group (2,165 tests) is left out. Northern Ireland has its own MOT system and is not in the data.
Age adjustment: age is whole years from the car’s date of first use (for a new UK car, the date it was first registered) to the test date, from 0 to 60 years. For each area, expected fails are the sum, across every age, of the area’s tests at that age multiplied by the national fail rate at that age. The age-adjusted rate is observed fails divided by expected fails, multiplied by the national rate of 27.7%. This is known as indirect age standardisation.
First MOT: tests carried out between 1,020 and 1,139 days after first use, which holds the first MOT peak. Grouping by whole years would put most first MOTs in the 2-year-old group, because they are done just before the third birthday. A few vehicles, such as taxis, are tested from age 1, so a small share of tests in the window are not first MOTs. Narrower and wider windows gave the same order of brands.
Brands: the make recorded by DVSA, with VW counted as Volkswagen and Mercedes as Mercedes-Benz. The brand tables cover cars only: vans, pickups and van-based people carriers were left out by model name (for example Transit, Berlingo, Vivaro, Partner, Transporter, Vito, Hilux, Ranger and L200), along with brands such as Isuzu that sell only vans or pickups. A brand needs at least 5,000 tests at that age to appear.
Mileage: the average odometer reading recorded at the test. Readings of zero or of 500,000 or more are ignored.
Checks: our national rate (27.68%) is within 0.04 points of the rate from DVSA’s published quarterly figures for the same months (27.64%). Leaving vans out of the area figures moves no area by more than 7 places; the same 10 areas stay at the bottom, and at the top only Bristol (BS) and Kilmarnock (KA) swap 10th and 11th places.
Limitations: fail rates reflect maintenance, use and mileage as well as how cars are built. The area figures are adjusted for age only, not for mileage or for the makes and models tested in each area, and differences between areas may also reflect roads, weather and how testers apply the rules. Brand figures are not adjusted for mileage.