Although the average MOT failure rate for vehicles having their first MOT at three years old is around 17%, there’s a wide disparity between the best and the worst.
The worst…
First though, it’s of note that the worst three Class 4 vehicles are vans. The Transit van is the very worst with 30.7% failing their first MOT in 2016, followed closely by the Citroen Berlingo and the Peugeot Partner at 29.4% and 25.5% respectively.
This clearly reflects their harder life in a commercial environment. It probably also explains why the next worst in the list is the Vauxhall Corsa – with 23.3% failing that first MOT, which almost certainly includes Corsa ‘car derived’ vans, which would pull the model down in the rankings.
The rankings list the first ‘worst car’ as the Peugeot 3008 of which 22.4% failed their first MOT, followed by the Citroen DS3 at 20.6% and then the Ford Mondeo at 19.2%. Now we come to the ninth and tenth worst vehicles overall, the Seat Leon (17.9% failed) and VW Passat (17.7% failed).
The best…
The best ten vehicles with the lowest number of failures at their first MOT are all German or Japanese cars, with one exception, the Vauxhall Mokka. The very best car was the Honda Jazz, of which only 6.7% failed that first MOT, whilst the next best was the Audi Q3 at 9.2%, a surprisingly large gap.
Then close behind the Q3 came the Vauxhall Mokka, of which 9.6% failed, followed, again quite close behind, at 9.8% were both the Honda CR-V and the VW Tiguan. Then two more Toyotas, the Auris and the Yaris also close together with 10.9% and 11% failing that first MOT, respectively.
Taking us up to the tenth best vehicle are another Japanese car, the Nissan Juke at 11.6% and finally a German Mercedes, the A180 of which 11.8% failed their MOT at three years old.
German and Japanese dominance
Of the top ten vehicles in terms of their likelihood of passing their first MOT Test, the field is dominated by five Japanese cars, and four of German manufacture. Notably no French vehicles appear until the Peugeot 208, in 14th place with 13% failing the first MOT.