Cars that beat their age
An older car failing an MOT tells you almost nothing: it is older. So every model here is measured against the national pass rate for cars of the same age and the same annual mileage, and the number in the last column is what is left over.
Why adjust at all
The published pass-rate tables mostly compare a ten-year-old car with a three-year-old one, which is a table of vehicle age wearing a reliability costume. Adjusting removes the two things nobody controls — how old the car is and how far it has been driven — and leaves the part that somebody does control: whether it was looked after.
A car with a positive number here is passing more often than its age and mileage predict. That is not luck, and it is not a badge: it is usually the owner fixing advisories before they become failures.
Method: indirect standardisation across 130 age × mileage cells, with the full method and its limits published. Deltas under about a point are noise — ignore them.
Models that beat their age most
| Model | Pass | Exp. | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bentley Continental | 93.1% | 78.4% | +14.7 |
| Porsche 911 | 91.0% | 77.3% | +13.7 |
| BMW M3 | 89.4% | 76.2% | +13.2 |
| Porsche Cayman | 91.0% | 79.8% | +11.2 |
| Mercedes-Benz Sl | 87.2% | 76.3% | +10.9 |
| Porsche Boxster | 86.8% | 76.1% | +10.7 |
| Audi A8 | 90.2% | 80.0% | +10.2 |
| Jaguar Xk | 85.2% | 75.2% | +10.0 |
| Lexus IS250 | 83.0% | 73.6% | +9.4 |
| Lexus RX450H | 84.6% | 75.2% | +9.4 |
| Toyota Iq | 84.6% | 75.5% | +9.1 |
| Lexus Rx | 93.7% | 85.1% | +8.6 |
| BMW 535 | 85.8% | 77.5% | +8.3 |
| Jaguar Xkr | 82.0% | 73.7% | +8.3 |
| Lexus RX400H | 81.2% | 73.0% | +8.2 |
| Lexus Ct | 89.9% | 81.8% | +8.1 |
| Jaguar F-Type | 92.8% | 84.8% | +8.0 |
| Subaru Impreza | 81.2% | 73.9% | +7.3 |
| BMW 730 | 87.0% | 79.8% | +7.2 |
| MINI Paceman | 88.4% | 81.3% | +7.1 |
| Porsche Cayenne | 88.5% | 81.6% | +6.9 |
| Mercedes-Benz S-Class | 87.1% | 80.3% | +6.8 |
| Toyota GT86 | 88.5% | 81.7% | +6.8 |
| BMW 530 | 82.5% | 75.9% | +6.6 |
| Lexus Nx | 94.0% | 87.4% | +6.6 |
“Expected” is the national pass rate for cars of this model's age and mileage mix, not a target.
Models that fall furthest behind their age
| Model | Pass | Exp. | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vauxhall Vivaro | 72.8% | 80.8% | -8.0 |
| Mercedes-Benz Citan | 77.2% | 85.1% | -7.9 |
| Renault Trafic | 73.4% | 81.1% | -7.7 |
| Citroen DS3 | 71.4% | 78.6% | -7.2 |
| Mazda Bongo | 69.0% | 76.2% | -7.2 |
| Nissan NV200 | 74.0% | 81.1% | -7.1 |
| Renault Kangoo | 71.8% | 78.6% | -6.8 |
| Chevrolet Aveo | 68.9% | 75.5% | -6.6 |
| Renault Clio | 72.5% | 79.1% | -6.6 |
| Renault Zoe | 80.4% | 87.0% | -6.6 |
| Citroen C4 Grand Picasso | 79.1% | 85.6% | -6.5 |
| SsangYong Korando | 77.2% | 83.6% | -6.4 |
| Tesla Model 3 Performance | 84.0% | 90.4% | -6.4 |
| Citroen Dispatch | 75.8% | 82.1% | -6.3 |
| Nissan Primastar | 68.2% | 74.5% | -6.3 |
| Renault Grand Scenic | 71.4% | 77.7% | -6.3 |
| Citroen DS4 | 72.6% | 78.7% | -6.1 |
| Fiat Fiorino | 75.6% | 81.7% | -6.1 |
| Vauxhall Combo | 75.7% | 81.8% | -6.1 |
| Renault Megane | 71.4% | 77.3% | -5.9 |
| Chevrolet Captiva | 70.0% | 75.8% | -5.8 |
| Vauxhall Antara | 72.7% | 78.4% | -5.7 |
| DS DS3 | 79.5% | 85.1% | -5.6 |
| Fiat Bravo | 68.6% | 74.1% | -5.5 |
| Citroen Berlingo | 76.0% | 81.3% | -5.3 |
The whole picture, make by make
Every make that has at least 50,000 car tests, ranked the same way. Aston Martin comes out 14.2 points ahead of its own benchmark; SsangYong is 7 points behind.
| Make | Pass | Exp. | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aston Martin | 93.5% | 79.3% | +14.2 |
| Bentley | 93.5% | 79.7% | +13.8 |
| Porsche | 90.2% | 81.0% | +9.2 |
| Lexus | 88.7% | 80.9% | +7.8 |
| Honda | 81.9% | 78.3% | +3.6 |
| Toyota | 84.0% | 80.5% | +3.5 |
| Subaru | 81.6% | 78.2% | +3.4 |
| BMW | 84.9% | 81.8% | +3.1 |
| MINI | 83.9% | 81.0% | +2.9 |
| Mazda | 84.2% | 81.7% | +2.5 |
| Land Rover | 83.8% | 81.3% | +2.5 |
| Audi | 84.2% | 81.7% | +2.5 |
| Jaguar | 84.4% | 82.0% | +2.4 |
| Suzuki | 82.7% | 80.8% | +1.9 |
| Saab | 75.2% | 73.3% | +1.9 |
| Smart Mcc | 81.5% | 80.1% | +1.4 |
| Skoda | 83.6% | 82.4% | +1.2 |
| Daihatsu | 74.0% | 73.0% | +1.0 |
| Mercedes-Benz | 83.4% | 82.6% | +0.8 |
| Volkswagen | 81.2% | 80.7% | +0.5 |
| Volvo | 81.9% | 81.6% | +0.3 |
| Rover | 72.9% | 72.8% | +0.1 |
| Hyundai | 82.4% | 82.3% | +0.1 |
| Mitsubishi | 80.7% | 80.7% | 0.0 |
| MG | 86.7% | 87.0% | -0.3 |
| Abarth | 84.4% | 84.7% | -0.3 |
| Jeep | 81.7% | 82.1% | -0.4 |
| Ford | 79.7% | 80.3% | -0.6 |
| Kia | 82.4% | 83.2% | -0.8 |
| SEAT | 82.0% | 82.9% | -0.9 |
| Chrysler | 73.7% | 75.1% | -1.4 |
| Fiat | 78.5% | 80.3% | -1.8 |
| Peugeot | 78.5% | 80.4% | -1.9 |
| Alfa Romeo | 77.3% | 79.2% | -1.9 |
| Nissan | 78.8% | 80.9% | -2.1 |
| Vauxhall | 77.8% | 80.3% | -2.5 |
| Citroen | 77.0% | 80.1% | -3.1 |
| Dacia | 82.0% | 85.6% | -3.6 |
| Tesla | 87.0% | 90.8% | -3.8 |
| Isuzu | 78.9% | 82.8% | -3.9 |
| Chevrolet | 71.5% | 75.7% | -4.2 |
| Renault | 75.3% | 80.5% | -5.2 |
| DS | 80.3% | 85.6% | -5.3 |
| SsangYong | 78.1% | 85.1% | -7.0 |
What this table is not
- Not a reliability score. It measures MOT failures only, and a car that is serviced every year will beat its age regardless of whether it is fundamentally sturdy.
- Not a price guide. Prestige models beat their age largely because of what owners spend on them — the models that cost most to fix is the other half of that story, and the correlation between the two is close to zero.
- Not a comparison of models with different mileage mixes. It is adjusted for mileage, but a taxi-spec saloon and a weekend coupé of the same model still pool into one line.
Snapshot: DVSA's 2023–2025 MOT extracts, 111,079,869 tests across 12,797 model-years. How the comparison is built.