MOTFaults
Calculate my fail sheet Calculate
Menu
Calculate my fail sheet

The cheapest cars to get through an MOT

Not the cheapest to buy — the cheapest to get through the test. We take each model's failure rate and multiply it by what its failures typically cost to fix, across 379 car models and 97,579,087 real MOT tests. The result is expected repair spend per 100 tests.

Cheapest per 100 tests
Lexus Ux
£133–£317
Dearest
Jaguar X-Type
£1,749–£4,760
Cheapest over 10 years old
Jaguar Xk
£327–£846
Reliability vs repair price
r = 0.03
no link at all

Cheapest cars, all ages

Expected repair spend across 100 MOT tests, using each model's own pass rate and typical repair bill. Lower is cheaper to keep legal.

Ranked by expected repair spend per 100 tests, cheapest first
# Model Per 100 testsPer 100 Pass ratePass Typical repair Typical Tests
1 Lexus Ux £133–£317 96.3% £36–£86 36,403
2 Toyota C-Hr £159–£419 91.6% £19–£50 255,306
3 Levc Tx £167–£446 95.8% £40–£107 33,816
4 Mazda Cx-30 £172–£417 94.4% £31–£75 42,505
5 Lexus Nx £175–£433 94.0% £29–£72 88,260
6 Toyota Estima £190–£555 85.4% £13–£38 59,618
7 Jaguar F-Type £202–£491 92.8% £28–£68 43,872
8 Toyota Prius £211–£575 88.3% £18–£49 538,036
9 Kia Stonic £217–£530 91.3% £25–£61 68,234
10 Suzuki Celerio £219–£539 90.9% £24–£59 88,112
11 Kia Xceed £225–£563 91.3% £26–£65 49,078
12 Lexus Rx £226–£559 93.7% £36–£89 54,410
13 Suzuki Vitara £227–£571 90.9% £25–£63 207,003
14 Bentley Continental £242–£678 93.1% £35–£98 42,936
15 Ford Puma £243–£569 93.6% £38–£89 182,687

Cheapest once they are ten years old or more

Models whose newest tested year is 2016 or older — what a cheap used car actually looks like. The all-ages table above is led by newer cars, because new cars fail less; this table removes that.

Same measure, restricted to models that stop at 2016 or earlier
# Model Per 100 testsPer 100 Pass ratePass Typical repair Typical Years tested
1 Jaguar Xk £327–£846 85.2% £22–£57 2005–2015
2 Toyota Iq £339–£895 84.6% £22–£58 2008–2014
3 Lexus RX450H £384–£1,075 84.6% £25–£70 2005–2016
4 Lexus IS250 £424–£1,238 83.0% £25–£73 2005–2012
5 MINI COOPER D £443–£1,195 80.7% £23–£62 2007–2014
6 Lexus RX400H £508–£1,487 81.2% £27–£79 2005–2009
7 Vauxhall Antara £518–£1,718 72.7% £19–£63 2007–2016
8 Jaguar Xkr £540–£1,511 82.0% £30–£84 2000–2013
9 Renault Modus £554–£1,570 69.2% £18–£51 2004–2012
10 Suzuki Alto £576–£1,727 79.4% £28–£84 2001–2015
11 Ford Fusion £588–£1,568 75.5% £24–£64 2002–2012
12 Fiat Grande Punto £592–£2,003 71.8% £21–£71 2007–2011

Vans are consistently dearer

Every van in our data costs more per test than the average car: heavier loads, harder miles, and failures that sit in brakes, suspension and tyres rather than a £5 bulb. Cheapest vans first.

Expected repair spend per 100 tests for vans, cheapest first
# Van Per 100 testsPer 100 Pass ratePass Typical repair Typical Tests
1 Ford Transit Courier £467–£1,211 82.7% £27–£70 94,151
2 Nissan NV200 £521–£1,484 74.0% £20–£57 100,010
3 Ford Transit Custom £552–£1,477 86.2% £40–£107 485,995
4 Toyota Proace £597–£1,717 81.9% £33–£95 40,348
5 Peugeot Partner £667–£2,000 77.8% £30–£90 564,170
6 Citroen Berlingo £720–£2,111 76.0% £30–£88 696,815
7 Volkswagen Caddy £729–£2,103 79.2% £35–£101 535,307
8 Peugeot Boxer £732–£1,970 82.6% £42–£113 168,748

Vans ranked by pass rate → · motorhomes · people carriers

Reliability and repair price are unrelated

The interesting result is not the ranking, it is what the ranking cannot tell you. Across 379 models, the correlation between pass rate and typical repair bill is r = 0.03. A car that fails often is not more likely to be expensive to fix, and a car that sails through is not more likely to be cheap when it does not.

That matters when you are buying. “Reliable” and “cheap to fix” are two separate questions, and you should ask both: a model with 71.3% and a £61–£166 repair bill is a different risk from one with the same pass rate and half the bill. Our per-model pages show both, and the calculator puts a number on a specific fail sheet.

Dearest cars to get through an MOT

The other end, for context: older performance and import models with expensive parts. A Jaguar X-Type works out at £1,749– £4,760 per 100 tests — about 13× the Lexus Ux.

Highest expected repair spend per 100 tests
Model Per 100 testsPer 100 Pass ratePass Typical repair Typical
Jaguar X-Type £1,749–£4,760 71.3% £61–£166
Mazda Bongo £1,551–£4,065 69.0% £50–£131
Rover 75 £1,361–£3,591 71.0% £47–£124
Citroen C2 £1,297–£3,679 69.8% £43–£122
Hyundai Coupe £1,263–£3,535 68.4% £40–£112
Suzuki Jimny £1,238–£3,279 78.3% £57–£151
Toyota Hiace £1,222–£3,158 76.9% £53–£137
Vauxhall Tigra £1,197–£3,283 69.3% £39–£107

How the number is built

Expected spend per 100 tests = (100 − pass rate) × typical repair bill. A model with a 90.0% pass rate and a £40–£100 repair bill is expected to spend £400–£1,000 across 100 tests. Both inputs are published elsewhere on this site: the pass rates are in the methodology, the repair brackets in section 7.

Three things to hold in mind. The repair bill is our estimate from UK parts prices, not an invoice — and where visitors have reported what they actually paid, we show that separately rather than blending it in. The figure is per test, not per year: it excludes the MOT fee itself, and a car tested twice a year doubles it. And it is an average over a model's whole fleet, so an individual car can be much better or much worse than its model.

Models need 20,000 tests to appear, which keeps out the handful of oddities that would otherwise top the table. Nothing here can be bought: no manufacturer pays for a position, and the code that produces these tables is the same code that produces every other page.

What individual repairs cost → Best pass rates → Cars that beat their age →