MOT results by vehicle age, fuel, mileage and defect area: Great Britain cars, 2024 and 2025
Published by CarCheckHQ · Updated 24 October 2026
A free, open table of MOT results for cars in Great Britain, built from the anonymised MOT data DVSA publishes. It covers 66,321,772 initial MOT tests (not retests) on cars and light passenger vehicles (test class 4) from 1 January 2024 to 30 December 2025. Every row is a total for a group of tests. There are no registrations, VINs, test IDs, vehicle IDs, makes, models or postcodes in the file.
Download: mot-study-aggregates-2024-2025.csv (CSV, 469 lines including the header, about 37 KB)
What's in the file
Three breakdowns, each split by test year (2024 and 2025):
- age_fuel: vehicle age band by fuel type, with "All" totals for each.
- age_mileage: vehicle age band by recorded mileage band, plus all ages by mileage band.
- age_category: vehicle age band by the area of the car an item was recorded against (brakes, tyres, suspension and so on), plus all ages by area.
For each row you get the number of tests, how many failed first time and how many had at least one advisory, with the rates as percentages.
Column dictionary
| Column | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| breakdown | text | Which table the row belongs to: age_fuel, age_mileage or age_category |
| test_year | integer | Calendar year of the test date |
| vehicle_age_band | text | Age at the test in whole years, from the first use date to the test date: 0-2, 3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-10, 11-14, 15-19, 20+, or All |
| fuel_type | text | Petrol, Diesel, Hybrid electric, Electric, Other or unknown (gas, LPG, electric diesel and other codes), or All. Fuel is as recorded at the test |
| mileage_band | text | Odometer reading recorded at the test: 0-24,999, 25,000-49,999, 50,000-74,999, 75,000-99,999, 100,000-149,999, 150,000+, Not recorded or not usable (blank, zero, or 1,000,000 or more), or All |
| defect_category | text | age_category rows only: the area of the car, grouped from the top level of the MOT test item list. "Other items" is mostly non-component advisories. All on other rows |
| tests | integer | Number of tests in the group. On age_category rows, this is every test in that year and age band, so the rates share one base |
| tests_failed_initially | integer | age_fuel and age_mileage: tests with a result of Fail or PRS (passed after repair at the test centre within an hour). age_category: tests with at least one Fail or PRS item in that area |
| initial_fail_rate_pct | decimal | tests_failed_initially divided by tests, as a percentage to one decimal place |
| tests_with_advisory | integer | Tests with at least one advisory item (in that area, on age_category rows) |
| advisory_rate_pct | decimal | tests_with_advisory divided by tests, as a percentage to one decimal place |
| suppressed | text | Names any count left blank because it was under 10, separated by semicolons. Blank when nothing is suppressed |
Method
- Source: DVSA's anonymised MOT test result and test item extracts for 2024 and 2025 (published June 2026), and the item detail and item group lookups, downloaded 23 Oct 2026.
- Tests included: test class 4, normal tests (not retests or appeals) with a result of Pass, Fail or PRS. This follows the definition in DVSA's user guide for its own published failure rates. Abandoned, aborted and refused tests are left out.
- Initial fail: Fail plus PRS, which matches the "initial failure rate" definition in DVSA's user guide.
- Vehicle age: whole years between the first use date and the test date. 361 tests were left out because the first use date was missing, was after the test date, or was 1 January 1971 (the placeholder used for an unknown date of manufacture).
- Defect areas: each test item was matched to its top-level group in the item lookups. The lookups hold two lists (the current one and an older one), so matching groups were combined under one name, for example "Brakes". A test counts once per area however many items it had there.
- Small numbers: any count under 10 is left blank, along with its rate, and named in the suppressed column. 23 counts are suppressed, all in very small defect areas.
- Checks: 2024 initial fail rate 28.3% (9,363,602 of 33,110,998 tests); 2025, 27.7% (9,193,589 of 33,210,774). 8,830 tests with a Fail or PRS result had no Fail or PRS item in the item extract; they're counted in the overall rates but in no defect area.
Limitations
- These are totals for groups of tests, not vehicles. A car tested twice in a year is counted twice.
- Mileage, colour and fuel are as entered by the tester. Some mileage readings are wrong or missing.
- The 0-2 age band is small and unusual. Most cars don't need an MOT until they're 3, so these are mostly early tests or cars whose first use date was recorded late.
- The file covers 1 January 2024 to 30 December 2025, the dates in the published extracts.
- An advisory is a note from the tester, not a fail. Testers record advisories differently, so advisory rates show what was written down, not the exact condition of the cars.
- There are no make or model figures, and no figures by area of the country, on purpose.
- This isn't a guide to any one car. Check the MOT history of the car you're looking at on GOV.UK.
Licence and credit
Our CSV: licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. You can share and adapt it, including commercially. Please credit "CarCheckHQ, MOT results by vehicle age, fuel, mileage and defect area, 2024 and 2025" and keep the source credit below.
Source data: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), MOT anonymised data. Analysis by CarCheckHQ. Not endorsed by DVSA. CarCheckHQ is independent and isn't affiliated with DVSA.