Pass rate
76.2%
Around average — 1.0 pts behind the 77.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 563 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £18–£56
2012 Citroen C3 Picasso MOT pass rate
- 2012
- typical 68,941 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Brakes
21.7% of faults · 20.9% nationally
mostly worn pads and discs, corroded pipes and a handbrake that will not hold.
Which year to buy
- Best 2019 85.5% pass
- Avoid 2009 69.0% pass
Across the 10 years on record, a spread of 16.5 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 69.1%
- Typical mileage
- 69k mi
The 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso MOT pass rate is 76.2% of its MOT tests — 1.0 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Brakes is the biggest single reason it fails, at 21.7% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Lamps & electrics: 1.4× the national share
Lamps & electrics make up 17.4% of everything recorded on the 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso, against 12.2% nationally — 5.2 points above. Brakes are still the single largest share at 21.7%, but at 20.9% nationally that one is ordinary. Walk round the car with the lights on before the test: bulbs, indicators and number-plate lamps are the cheapest failures to prevent and among the most common.
- Failures here tend to be cheap ones. 63% of the repairs this model fails on cost under £30 in parts. The pass rate matters less than what a bad afternoon at the test centre actually costs you.
Written from this page's own figures: fault shares against the national composition, the like-for-like pass rate, and the priced repair list. How these are worked out
Watching a Citroen C3 Picasso? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 77.2%, so this figure is 1.0 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 69.1%. The median 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso in this dataset had covered 68,941 mi.
The most common fuel recorded here is Diesel — 75% of tests, with a 75.2% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 75.5% of the time, April–September 76.9%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources", noted on 7.10% of tests.
- 563 recorded tests behind this page.
- 76.2% overall pass rate, 69.1% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Citroen C3 Picasso, the average is 81.7% — best year 2019 (85.5%), worst 2009 (69.0%).
Figures count every completed test on this vehicle-year in the dataset, including retests. See methodology for the exact definition.
This page's data
- Tests analysed
- 563
- Typical mileage (median)
- 68,941 mi
- Make and model
- Citroen C3 Picasso
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Number Plate Lamp
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the C3 Picasso MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 64% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Diesel is the most common here (75% of tests).
Where the Citroen C3 Picasso is most common
Across all C3 Picasso model years on record (2009–2019): 8,523 Citroen C3 Picasso cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 23,166 tests. Portsmouth (PO) has the most, with 291 cars tested there. Cars are counted by the postcode area of the MOT station, so this is where they were tested, not necessarily where their owners live.
| # | Postcode area | Cars | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Portsmouth (PO) | 291 | 84.1% |
| 2 | Brighton (BN) | 282 | 83.3% |
| 3 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 235 | 80.8% |
| 4 | Exeter (EX) | 207 | 80.1% |
| 5 | Truro (TR) | 203 | 73.0% |
| 6 | Ashford (TN) | 197 | 83.5% |
| 7 | Peterborough (PE) | 184 | 83.9% |
| 8 | Sheffield (S) | 184 | 83.3% |
| 9 | Gloucester (GL) | 177 | 83.0% |
| 10 | Cardiff (CF) | 175 | 81.4% |
| 11 | Plymouth (PL) | 172 | 82.2% |
| 12 | Birmingham (B) | 170 | 83.0% |
| 13 | Bristol (BS) | 163 | 82.8% |
| 14 | Yeovil (BA) | 145 | 81.1% |
| 15 | Nottingham (NG) | 144 | 82.2% |
| 16 | Norwich (NR) | 137 | 80.4% |
| 17 | Swansea (SA) | 133 | 81.9% |
| 18 | York (YO) | 132 | 78.2% |
| 19 | Ipswich (IP) | 123 | 87.0% |
| 20 | Wrexham (LL) | 113 | 82.8% |
The twenty areas with the most Citroen C3 Picasso cars in the record, sorted by car count — sort the columns for a different question. Cars tested at a station whose postcode area could not be resolved are counted in the model's total but in no area, so the shares add up to slightly under 100% even across every area, and an area's cars are a subset of the model's. Pass rate is blank below 30 tests in an area, where a percentage is noise rather than a finding. How this model's pass rate varies by postcode →
Regional pass rates for the C3 Picasso
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 194 | 78.9% |
| South West | 91 | 75.8% |
| East of England | 57 | 73.7% |
| North East | 50 | 76.0% |
| Wales | 46 | 69.6% |
| West Midlands | 33 | 75.8% |
| Yorkshire | 33 | 78.8% |
| North West | 23 | 78.3% |
| East Midlands | 21 | 66.7% |
Regions come from the postcode area recorded at the test station. Areas on region borders are assigned to the region with the majority of their population.
What fails a 2012 C3 Picasso
Everything a tester recorded on this vehicle, grouped into the inspection sections that produced it. The notch on each bar is the national share, so you can see at a glance whether this car is unusual or just ordinary.
A test can record several items, so these percentages do not add up to 100%. The exact strings, with prices, are in the full DVSA record at the bottom of this page.
Before your test
Three checks worth doing on a 2012 C3 Picasso
These are not generic tips — they are the faults recorded most often on this exact model, rewritten as things you can check yourself. All three take about ten minutes and cost nothing.
-
Check the lights 7.1% of tests
“registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources”
Switch everything on and walk round the car: both headlamps on dip and main, every indicator, both brake lights, reverse, fog and the two number-plate lamps. A bulb is a few pounds and a five-minute job.
-
Check the suspension joints 3.5% of tests
“track rod end ball joint has excessive play”
With the car parked on level ground, rock the top of each front wheel in and out while someone watches the suspension arm. Clunks, or rubber boots split and greasy, are what testers record here.
-
Check the exhaust and emissions 2.5% of tests
“exhaust system system insecure”
Listen for a blow at idle and have someone rev it gently. Then look at the tailpipe smoke: blue is oil, white when warm is coolant, black is over-fuelling. Any of those and the emissions test is the least of it.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
What it costs to get a 2012 C3 Picasso through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £18–£56 — and 63% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £18–£56
- Cheapest common item: stop lamp not working
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: joints constant velocity boot split or…
- £80–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 80%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 63%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 563 MOT tests on this vehicle. They exclude diagnostics, retest fees and garage labour where the part is a DIY fit, and they are not figures from the DVSA dataset. Older and higher-mileage examples cost more than the average. How these estimates are built → · All MOT repair costs → · Cheapest cars to put through a test →
Every year of the C3 Picasso, side by side
10 model years on record, from 2009 to 2019. Across them the pass rate runs from 69.0% to 85.5% — a spread of 16.5 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2009 69.0% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2010 69.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2011 73.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2012 76.2%registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2013 79.1% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2014 82.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2015 81.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2016 82.2% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2017 83.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2019 85.5% headlamp not working on dipped…
Colour is the pass rate on a fixed scale, so a block means the same thing on any model. Each year links to its own page with the full fault breakdown.
Compare the 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso with another year
The raw pass rate mostly measures age. The year comparison adds the like-for-like figure, the mileage bands and the repair bill.
Other 2012 cars with a similar record
- Peugeot Rcz 76.2%
- Chevrolet Cruze 76.2%
- Volkswagen Beetle 76.3%
- Vauxhall Zafira 76.0%
- Hyundai I20 75.9%
- Mercedes-Benz Vito 76.5%
Closest pass rates among 2012 cars with at least 2,000 tests, so a small sample cannot flatter itself into the list. See the full rankings: best and worst MOT pass rates.
The full DVSA record for the 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso 10 failure items · 6 advisories · 10 inspection categories · mileage brackets · all of it in the page, none of it above the fold
Every inspection category
Shares of the 1,133 individual items recorded on this vehicle, and the same share across all cars nationally. A single test can record several items, so a row is not a percentage of tests.
| Category | Items | This car | Nationally | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brakes | 252 | 21.70% | 20.89% | +0.81 |
| Tyres | 227 | 19.60% | 19.76% | −0.16 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 202 | 17.40% | 12.21% | +5.19 |
| Suspension | 134 | 11.60% | 20.98% | −9.38 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 121 | 10.40% | 5.57% | +4.83 |
| Visibility | 52 | 4.50% | 4.97% | −0.47 |
| Non-component advisories | 48 | 4.10% | 4.18% | −0.08 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 41 | 3.50% | 5.52% | −2.02 |
| Steering | 40 | 3.50% | 2.57% | +0.93 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 16 | 1.40% | 1.76% | −0.36 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 7.1% | £5–20 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 3.5% | £5–25 |
| Track rod end ball joint has excessive play Steering | Major | 3.5% | £18–45 |
| Joints constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Body, chassis, structure | Major | 3.4% | £80–250 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 2.8% | £18–45 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 2.7% | £5–25 |
| Exhaust system system insecure Body, chassis, structure | Major | 2.5% | £45–120 |
| Headlamp not working on dipped beam Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 2.5% | £5–25 |
| Washers not working Visibility | Major | 2.5% | £5–15 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 2.3% | £3–12 |
Severity is as recorded: Major and Dangerous fail the test outright; Minor and Advisory do not. Costs are estimates from typical UK parts prices — see how they are built.
What testers noted without failing the car
Advisories are the early warnings — the same parts a year or two before they fail. Reading them is how you tell a car that has been maintained from one that has been patched.
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 21.7% | £45–110 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 18.5% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 11.7% | £45–95 |
| Exhaust system system insecure Body, chassis, structure | Advisory | 10.5% | £45–120 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 5.3% | £40–150 |
| Brake discs significantly and obviously worn Brakes | Advisory | 5.0% | £45–110 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 22 | 81.8% | 25,557 mi |
| 30-60k | 186 | 78.5% | 48,449 mi |
| 60-90k | 204 | 75.0% | 74,569 mi |
| 90-120k | 111 | 74.8% | 103,242 mi |
| 120k+ | 40 | 72.5% | 132,947 mi |
Source: 563 recorded tests on this vehicle-year. Every row above is recomputed from the same DVSA extract as the rest of the page — see the methodology.
2012 C3 Picasso MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso?
76.2% of the 563 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 77.2% for cars first used in 2012. First-attempt pass rate: 69.1%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso?
The three most recorded items are registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (7.10%), position lamp not working (3.55%), track rod end ball joint has excessive play (3.55%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 81.8% of the time, falling to 72.5% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso in this dataset had covered 68,941 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso?
Diesel: 75.2% pass rate across 424 tests. Petrol: 79.1% pass rate across 139 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2012 Citroen C3 Picasso MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 75.5% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 76.9%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.