What does an MOT advisory mean, and will it fail next time?

An MOT advisory is the tester's note that an item is wearing but has not reached the limit that would make it a defect, so it is not a failure and never becomes one by itself. It only matters at the next test if that item has worn past its limit by then. DVSA grades defects Minor, Major or Dangerous, and a Minor defect still passes.

An advisory is a note, not a defect

It is written down so the owner knows about it, not because the test has found a reason to refuse a certificate. Nor does it tell you the result on its own: advisories are recorded on the test outcome either way, so a car refused a certificate for a Major defect can still have advisories listed about other items.

What an advisory does do is describe the vehicle on the day of the test. It is a single observation by one tester at one moment, which is why a run of certificates is more informative than the most recent one.

Minor, Major and Dangerous: the grading people confuse with an advisory

The grade, not the existence of the defect, decides the result — and a Minor defect passes. This is the point most often misread: a result can list both advisories and Minor defects and still be a pass.

An advisory sits outside this scale altogether. A Minor defect is a defect that has been judged not serious enough to fail; an advisory is a note about something that has not been judged a defect at all.

Will it fail next time? What the answer actually depends on

Nothing carries over. At the next test the vehicle is assessed from scratch against the same limits, and last year's advisory has no status in that assessment. So the question is not whether an advisory becomes a failure — it cannot — but whether the underlying item will have crossed its own pass limit by the time the tester looks at it again. That turns on one thing: whether the item goes on getting worse without anyone touching it.

• Advisories on wearing parts move towards a failure. Tyres, brake components and corrosion all deteriorate with use and time. An advisory here is a warning about direction of travel, and the more miles driven between tests, the more likely the item is to have crossed the line.
• Advisories on static observations often do not. A previous repair the tester wanted on record, or damage that is not deteriorating, can be noted at test after test without ever affecting a result.

If one advisory deserves more attention than the rest, it is a tyre. DVSA's 2025/26 figures show tyres accounted for 60.60% of all dangerous defects, ahead of brakes at 28.80% and suspension at 5.32%. Tyres are both the component most often found in a dangerous condition and one that wears with every mile.

Source: DVSA MOT testing data for Great Britain, table DVSA/MOT/03, financial year 2025 to 2026, classes 3 and 4, published 10 September 2026. DVSA states that this data set is not classed as an official statistic. Which categories fail most often, and how often, is set out in what actually fails the MOT.

Great Britain and Northern Ireland are tested differently

DVSA is responsible for testing in Great Britain; in Northern Ireland the test is carried out by the DVA.

• First test. The third anniversary of registration in Great Britain, four years in Northern Ireland.
• Fees. A maximum of £54.85 for a class 4 vehicle in Great Britain, and a garage may charge less; GOV.UK states no VAT is charged on it and it has been unchanged since 2010. In Northern Ireland a full test is £38.00 and a retest is £29.50 — the prices DVA charges at its own test centres rather than a cap, raised from £30.50 and £18.50 after its 2023 fee consultation.
• Public history. Past results and advisories are published back to 2005 in England, Scotland and Wales, but only back to 2017 in Northern Ireland — so a Northern Ireland car will usually have a shorter record to read.
• Historic exemption. The 40-year age exemption from testing is UK-wide — Northern Ireland adopted the same rule on 12 October 2020, declared on the same form V112 — is my car exempt from the MOT sets out the test and how it differs from the historic vehicle tax exemption.

Reading the advisories on a car you are considering

The public MOT history service publishes every past result, the advisories written at each test and the mileage recorded on the day. Read the advisories in sequence rather than one at a time, so a repeat becomes visible. Compare the recorded mileages between tests, because the same advisory means more on a car covering high mileage — what a given figure implies is covered in how many miles is too many on a used car. And note which advisories vanished, since that is the closest thing to evidence the work was actually done.

Our MOT check tool works out when a vehicle's next test is due, and the most reliable used cars guide covers the models whose known faults tend to show up in advisories first. Unfamiliar terms on a certificate are defined in the car buying glossary.

Related pages

• MOT check — when the next test falls due.
• What actually fails the MOT — the DVSA defect data behind the grades.
• Car tax calculator — vehicle tax is a separate obligation from the test.
• Vehicle tax when buying a used car — what happens to the tax on a change of keeper.
• Most reliable used cars in the UK
• Compare cars side by side

Statistics on this page are DVSA MOT testing data for 2025/26 (classes 3 and 4 unless stated) and published maximum test fees. Verified 9 September 2026. Test fees, first-test ages and history depth described as applying to Great Britain do not apply in Northern Ireland, where the DVA operates a separate scheme. The 40-year historic exemption is the exception: Northern Ireland adopted it on 12 October 2020 and it reads across.