Keep your car in top condition — service schedules, tyres, brakes, oil, battery, coolant, and winter prep.
Check any UK car before you buy — free.
What the MOT tester checks on brake pads, discs, fluid and pipes, which wear states are minor, major or dangerous, and what to do before wet and icy roads.
Body and structure items fail 0.2% of first tests on 2021 cars and 4.5% on 2006 cars. Most are exhausts and driveshaft boots; corrosion is an advisory first.
Steering items fail 0.1% of first tests on cars first used in 2021 and 1.8% on 2006 cars. One joint, the track rod end, accounts for most of them.
Wiper faults were recorded on 2.3% of first MOTs on cars aged 3 to 5, more than at 6 to 9 years. The visibility fails by age and a five-minute check.
Most of what fails an MOT is ordinary wear that an owner can see coming: a wiper blade that smears, a bulb that has gone, a tyre worn to its markers, a washer jet that dribbles. These are not mysteries and they are not expensive. They are the items that turn a pass into a fail because nobody looked, and the national test record shows them being recorded by the hundred thousand every year, on new cars as well as old ones.
The articles in this section take the maintenance questions drivers actually ask and answer them from that record and from the official rules. What the DVSA inspection manual counts as a defect and how severe it is. Which checks are worth five minutes before a test and which are not. What the GOV.UK retest rules let you fix and bring back without paying a second fee. Where a job is genuinely for a mechanic and where it is not.
The habit that pays most is to read the previous certificate before the next test. A minor defect or advisory recorded a year ago has had another year of use, and the test record shows how often such items return as fails. Our free car check shows the full MOT history for any UK registration, including those minor items, alongside the DVLA record. The guides below cover each job in plain English.
Check any UK car before you buy — free.