First MOT: when it’s due and which new cars fail

When is the first MOT due?

By the third anniversary of the vehicle’s registration, then on the anniversary of its last MOT every year after that. GOV.UK lets you take the test up to a month (minus a day) before the current one runs out and keep the same renewal date. The MOT due date check shows the exact date DVSA holds for any registration.

Driving without a valid MOT once it’s due can mean a fine of up to £1,000, and most insurance needs one. The only journeys allowed are to a pre-booked test or to a garage for repairs.

What new cars fail on

Tyres, far ahead of anything else. 55.6% of failed first MOTs had at least one tyre defect, and the most common single defect, in DVSA’s words, was “a tyre seriously damaged”. Tread below 1.6mm and cords showing came next. Wipers, washers, brake pads and lights make up most of the rest, and most of these can be checked on the driveway: the pre-MOT checklist takes 10 minutes, and the tyre size guide shows where the right size is printed.

Mileage matters more than the badge

Three-year-old cars with under 15,000 miles failed 4.3% of the time. Those over 60,000 failed 17.2%. The typical car arrived at its first MOT with 23,852 miles, so a car that’s done twice that is in a different risk group, whatever the make.

Cars with the fewest first-MOT fails

Model families with at least 1,000 first MOTs in 2025, cars only. “Mileage alone predicts” is the fail rate you’d expect from how far that model’s cars had been driven, using the national rate at each mileage. Below it, the model does better than its mileage explains.

Cars with the most first-MOT fails

7 of these 12 are electric cars. They cover more miles than most, which accounts for some of it, but each of them still fails at least 3.6 points more than its mileage predicts. Electric cars’ extra fails are mostly tyres: 8.1% of all electric cars failed their first MOT on tyres, against 4.3% of petrol cars. Are electric cars more reliable? follows the same cars to 10 years old.

By fuel

Every make

Makes with at least 1,000 first MOTs. The range is the 95% interval: where two makes’ ranges overlap, the data can’t say which is better. LEVC is left out because it only builds taxis, which are tested from one year old.

Vans and pick-ups

Kept apart from cars because they’re bought for work and driven far further. Even allowing for that, most fail several points more than their mileage predicts, which fits vehicles that carry loads and work every day.

How this was worked out

From DVSA’s anonymised MOT test results for 2025, published under the Open Government Licence and retrieved 13 Oct 2026. We took class 4 normal tests (cars and light vans) 34 to 39 months after the vehicle was first used, which is where first MOTs bunch in the data, and counted each vehicle once, at its earliest test in that window. A fail is a first-attempt fail. Another 2.7% passed only after a defect was fixed during the test, and they count as passes here, the same as across the rest of the site.

DVSA records models trim by trim, so we grouped trims into model families (every Qashqai, every Model Y) and kept each fuel apart. BMW’s numbered models become series, and Mercedes’ become classes.

What it can’t tell you: these figures show how cars were looked after as much as how they were built. Many three-year-old cars are ending a lease or company contract, and how well they were maintained varies. Taxis and similar vehicles tested from one year old can’t all be separated out in one year’s data; we dropped the 1,811 we could identify, and the rest are a few per cent of the total with lower fail rates than average, so we estimate they move the headline rate by about a tenth of a point. The data covers Great Britain only; Northern Ireland tests separately.

MOT timing rules from GOV.UK’s Getting an MOT and its fees table, read 11 Oct 2026. Page last reviewed 11 Oct 2026.

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