MOT Pass Rate by Car Age: Where the Fall Is Steepest

The short answer

About 7 in 8 cars pass their first MOT at age three: 87.8% of 10,554,916 first tests carried out 2021 to 2025. The pass rate then falls every single year until age 17, when it is 56.0%, about 5 in 9. After that it stops falling: 55.9% at 18, 56.1% at 19, and 60.9% for everything aged 20 and over.

The fall is not even. It is steepest between about six and twelve, when each extra year costs the group a clear step, and it is gentle again past fifteen. For a buyer the useful part is the middle of the curve: a car tested at seven passed 78.7% of the time, at ten 68.9%, at thirteen 60.8%. Age is a strong predictor of how a group of cars tests. It says nothing about any one car, which is why the MOT history matters more than the plate.

The pass rate at every age

First-test pass rate by age at test, all cars, 2021 to 2025. Age is the test year minus the year the car was first used.

Age at test	Pass rate	What that age usually means
3	87.8%	First MOT, often still under a maker's warranty
5	84.2%	Second or third owner, tyres and pads due
7	78.7%	The steep part begins
9	72.1%	Close to the national average for all ages
11	65.8%	Suspension and corrosion items arrive
13	60.8%	Brake pipes and exhausts join the list
15	57.6%	The curve starts to level
17	56.0%	The low point

The even years sit where you would expect between them: 86.4% at four, 81.6% at six, 75.4% at eight, 63.2% at twelve, 58.9% at fourteen, 56.6% at sixteen. The national figure across all ages was 70.5% in 2021 and 72.3% in 2025, so a nine-year-old car's group tests roughly like the country as a whole.

Why the line levels off after 15

Cars do not get sounder at seventeen. What changes is which cars are still being tested. By then many of the hardest-used examples have been scrapped, and what remains is weighted towards cars that someone has chosen to keep and keep right. The 20-and-over group, 8,058,737 tests, passes at 60.9%, better than any age from fourteen to nineteen, and it includes cars kept as a hobby rather than as transport. That is the likeliest reading. The store records the result of each test and the age of the car, not the reason for either, so it is a reading and not a finding.

What it means when buying

Use age for the budget, not the decision. The curve tells you what a group of cars at that age cost their owners at test time. The history of the one you are looking at tells you about that car.
Read the history on GOV.UK. The free MOT history service shows every pass, fail and advisory. A ten-year-old car with clean passes and acted-on advisories is a different proposition from the average ten-year-old.
Know when the first test is due. GOV.UK requires the first MOT by the third anniversary of registration. A nearly-new car with months to run has no history to read yet.
Price the test in. The most a test centre can charge for a car is £54.85; what costs money is the repair list behind a fail, and the table is a fair guide to how often that list is empty at each age.
Treat the flat part with care. A 56% pass rate at seventeen is not a reason to prefer a seventeen-year-old car over a fourteen-year-old one. The group has changed, not the cars.

Driving without a valid MOT carries a fine of up to £1,000, and a car whose test has run out cannot be used on the road except to get to a repair or a pre-arranged test.

What this does not mean

Every figure here is a national average over tens of millions of tests. A pass rate of 87.8% at three means that, across every make, model and owner, that share of three-year-old cars passed first time. It does not mean a given three-year-old has an 87.8% chance; its own chance depends on its miles, its tyres and the last owner. The pass rate also counts a pass after rectification as a fail, so a car that needed a bulb on the day is in the failing share. None of this says which models to buy at which age; for that the per-model pages and the car's own history are the place to look.

Frequently asked questions

At what age do cars start failing the MOT?+

From the first test. At age three, 87.8% of first tests passed in 2021 to 2025, and the rest did not. The pass rate then falls every year, fastest between about six and twelve, to 56.0% at seventeen.

When is a car's first MOT due?+

By the third anniversary of its registration, under the GOV.UK rules. Until then there is no MOT history to read, so a nearly-new used car has to be judged on its service record instead.

Why do cars aged 20 and over pass more often than cars aged 17?+

The likeliest reading is that the group has changed: the hardest-used cars have been scrapped and what remains is weighted towards kept and cherished examples. The 20-and-over group passed at 60.9% against 56.0% at seventeen. The data records results, not reasons.

Is a high pass rate for an age a reason to buy a car of that age?+

It is a guide to what the group costs its owners at test time, nothing more. The car's own MOT history on GOV.UK, free and public, tells you far more than its age.

Sources and method

Pass rates are national class 4 first tests, 2021-2025, by vehicle age at test (test year minus first-used year), from the national roll-up and so with no per-model floor: 10,554,916 tests at age 3, 10,798,230 at age 10, 4,843,462 at age 17, 3,868,579 at age 18, 2,902,007 at age 19 and 8,058,737 at 20 and over, which pools every age from 20 upwards. The national figures by test year are 70.5% of 31,301,558 tests in 2021 and 72.3% of 33,210,951 in 2025.

About these figures. Figures are computed by SortedCars from the DVSA anonymised MOT results dataset (class 4, first tests only, test years 2021-2025), published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Pass rate = passes divided by first tests, with pass-after-rectification counted as a fail. No figure is shown for any group with fewer than 500 tests. Test class 4 only, first tests only; retests are excluded. Pass rates describe fleets, not individual machines: they reflect how cars were driven, maintained and used as well as how they were built, and beyond recorded mileage none of that is in the data. A well-kept example of a model with a weak average can still pass; a neglected example of a strong one can still fail. Alias spellings of a make are counted under one make name and all trims of a model under one model name, using SortedCars' grouping tables.

This article is general information drawn from published test records. It is not professional, mechanical or legal advice, and an MOT pass or a clean MOT history does not guarantee that a car is roadworthy today. If you are unsure about a car, have it inspected by a qualified mechanic. You can check any vehicle's MOT history free on the official GOV.UK MOT history service.

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