What are the odds a used car passes its next MOT?

There is no single figure: 77.3% of cars aged three and over pass the MOT first time, but that ranges from 94.9% for a three-year-old on 20,000 miles or less to 61.1% for a twenty-year-old past 160,000. Mileage matters more than age — a twenty-year-old that has covered under 20,000 miles passes 86.3% of the time, better than a ten-year-old on average miles at 76.3%. Counted from 3,393,731 DVSA tests in Great Britain.

Most pages that answer this quote one national percentage and stop. That number is nearly useless in front of an actual advert, because it averages a three-year-old city car with a twenty-year-old van-derived estate. The figures below are cut two ways — by age, and by what the odometer says — from the same 3,393,731 test records.

First-time pass rate by odometer reading

This is the cut almost nobody publishes, and it is the one that maps onto the number in the advert.

Odometer	Pass first time	Fail first time
0k–20k	93.5%	6.5%
20k–40k	88.3%	11.7%
40k–60k	82.0%	18.0%
60k–80k	76.0%	24.0%
80k–100k	71.2%	28.8%
100k–120k	68.0%	32.0%
120k–140k	66.7%	33.3%
140k–160k	66.1%	33.9%
160k+	67.1%	32.9%

Source: DVSA MOT Anonymised Data 2025 (Open Government Licence v3.0). Great Britain, class 4.

The curve stops falling, and that is not a mistake. Pass rates drop steadily to 66.1% in the 140k–160k band, then tick back up to 67.1% beyond 160,000 miles. Read it as survivorship rather than durability: a car only reaches that odometer reading if somebody kept maintaining it, and the ones nobody maintained were scrapped long before. It is an argument for buying a well-kept high-mileage car, not for ignoring mileage.

First-time pass rate by age

Age at test	Pass first time	Typical odometer
3 years	91.2%	23,860 miles
5 years	88.7%	38,570 miles
8 years	82.2%	61,556 miles
10 years	76.8%	74,057 miles
12 years	71.9%	84,652 miles
15 years	66.9%	96,317 miles
18 years	65.6%	102,899 miles
20 years	65.2%	101,100 miles

Typical odometer is the median reading recorded at test for cars of that age — measured, not self-estimated. Cars under three are excluded: no MOT is due, so the few tested are mostly taxis, private hire and imports.

Why mileage beats age, and where age catches up

Put the two tables together and the odometer wins. A twenty-year-old car that has covered under 20,000 miles passes 86.3% of the time — better than a ten-year-old on an ordinary 60,000–80,000 miles, at 76.3%. Years alone do not wear a car out; use does.

What age changes is how much the odometer matters. On a three-year-old, the gap between the lowest and highest mileage bands is about 4 percentage points. On a twenty-year-old it is about 25. A young car shrugs off miles; an old one does not, because corrosion and perished rubber are waiting behind whatever the miles have done.

What to actually do with this

Find the car’s age and odometer, then read both tables. If it is worse than typical on both, the next test is a real risk and belongs in your offer.
Look up the car’s own record on GOV.UK’s free MOT history service. It needs the registration, so ask the seller for it. Advisories on the last test are the single best predictor of the next one — far better than any national average.
Judge the odometer against the car’s age with the mileage checker before you decide it is high or low.
If it is a common model, check how that model holds up at that mileage — the spread between the best and worst is far wider than most buyers expect.

What these numbers count

Class 4 tests in Great Britain, test type NT (a normal annual test), retests excluded. A pass, or a pass with rectification at the station, counts as a first-time pass; DVSA's own initial-test measure counts a rectified pass as a failure and so reports a lower figure. Odometer readings below 100 or above 400,000 miles are discarded as misreadings, and cars under three years old are excluded because no MOT is yet due. Sampled from nine months of 2025 (January, February, April, May, July, August, September, October and November). Testing in Northern Ireland is run separately by the DVA under its own rules.

A rate across a fleet is not a probability for one car. Two cars of the same age and mileage can be in completely different condition, and nothing in a national table knows which one you are looking at.

Frequently asked

What percentage of cars pass the MOT first time?

77.3% of cars aged three and over pass first time, counted from 3,393,731 DVSA class 4 tests in Great Britain. A pass with rectification at the station counts as a pass here. DVSA's own initial-test measure treats that as a failure and so reports a lower figure — the two are measuring different things, not disagreeing.

Does mileage or age matter more for passing the MOT?

Mileage. A twenty-year-old car under 20,000 miles passes 86.3% of the time, while a ten-year-old on 60,000–80,000 miles passes 76.3% of the time. The two compound, though: the odometer makes roughly 4 points of difference on a three-year-old and about 25 points on a twenty-year-old.

Do very high mileage cars fail the MOT more often?

Up to a point, then it stops. The first-time pass rate falls steadily to 66.1% in the 140k–160k band and then rises slightly to 67.1% past 160,000 miles. That is survivorship, not durability: a car only reaches that mileage if somebody has been maintaining it, and the ones that were not have already left the road.

Can I tell whether a specific car will pass its MOT?

No. These are rates across a national fleet, not a prediction for one car. They tell you what is normal for a car of that age and mileage, which is useful for judging an advert and for deciding whether to budget for work. For a specific car, check its own MOT history — the advisories on the last test are the best guide to what the next one will find.

Do these figures cover Northern Ireland?

No. These are Great Britain figures from DVSA. Vehicle testing in Northern Ireland is run by the DVA under its own rules and scheduling, and is not included in this data.