What the record contains
Every MOT test in Great Britain is recorded by the tester and held by the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency). For each test you see the date, the result, the odometer reading and every item the tester noted. A car has its first MOT at three years old and one every year after that, so a ten year old car should have about eight tests on file, plus any retests.
Since 20 May 2018 each item has a category:
| Category | Result | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Dangerous | Fail | A direct risk to road safety or the environment. The car should not be driven until it is fixed. |
| Major | Fail | Could affect safety or the environment. Must be fixed and retested. |
| Minor | Pass | No significant effect on safety, but it should be repaired. |
| Advisory | Pass | Something to monitor: wear that has not yet reached the limit. |
Older tests only show fails and advisories. A "PRS" result (pass after rectification at the station) means the car failed but the fault was fixed during the test, usually within an hour. A PRS still tells you what was wrong.
Read it in order, not as a list
The value is in the sequence. Start at the oldest test and work forward, asking three questions.
- Does an advisory turn into a fail? "Brake disc worn, pitted or scored" as an advisory one year, then a fail the next, is normal wear that got fixed. The same advisory repeated for three years without ever being fixed tells you how the car has been looked after.
- Does the same part keep coming back? One failed coil spring is common. Springs on both sides, then a front wishbone, then an anti-roll bar link, points to a car that lives on rough roads or has corrosion underneath. Group the items by part and corner of the car.
- Are there gaps? A missing year usually means the car was off the road (SORN), not that something is hidden. Ask why. A car that sat for a long time can have seized brakes, perished tyres and a tired battery even with low mileage.
Red flags
- Corrosion advisories on structural parts. Words like "corroded", "excessively corroded" or "serious weakening" next to subframes, sills, suspension mounts or brake pipes are worth a close look. Surface rust on an old car is normal; structural rust is expensive and can be a fail at the next test.
- Fails fixed at the cheapest point. A car that fails on tyres or brakes every year and is retested the same day passes, but it tells you the owner fixed only what the test required.
- Mileage that goes down, or barely moves. Readings should rise every year. A drop, or a long stretch of tiny increases followed by a jump, needs an explanation. See how to spot clocked mileage.
- Oil leaks and smoke. "Oil leak" or "engine has an excessive oil leak" and emissions fails on an older diesel can mean costly repairs.
- A long list of advisories at the latest test. These are the jobs the next owner pays for. Price them before you agree a figure.
What normal looks like
Most cars fail an MOT at some point; that is not a problem by itself. In our analysis of 33.8 million MOT tests in 2023, 76.5% of cars and vans passed their initial test first time. The pass rate falls with age: 89.4% at three years old, 72.7% at ten and 64.4% at fifteen. Wear items dominate the fail lists: lamps, tyres, brakes, wipers and suspension springs. Broken coil springs are the most common fail item on the Vauxhall Corsa, Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus.
To see what is typical for the model you are looking at, open its page in our MOT statistics by make and model: pass rate by age, the most common failures and advisories, and the mileage range at each age.
What the MOT history does not show
An MOT is a check on the day, not a full inspection. It does not cover the engine's internal condition, the clutch or the gearbox, and it does not tell you about servicing. It also says nothing about outstanding finance, whether the car has been reported stolen, or whether an insurer has written it off. Those sit on private registers that need a paid history check from a provider that holds them. See Cat S, Cat N and write-offs explained.
How to get the history
The MOT history is free on gov.uk and in RegTail. RegTail's free check shows the latest result with its defects and advisories, the expiry and the recorded mileage. The full report (1 credit) groups every defect from every test by part and corner of the car, checks the mileage against every reading and against what is typical for the model, and turns it into a checklist for the viewing. Our guide is the free gov.uk MOT check enough? compares the two.