Pass rate
87.8%
Above average — 1.7 pts behind the 89.5% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 902 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £27–£70
2019 Dacia Duster Essential MOT pass rate
- 2019
- 2 trims combined
- typical 32,725 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Tyres
33.9% of faults · 19.8% nationally
mostly tread below the limit, cuts and sidewall bulges.
Part only £55–£85 for Tread depth below 1.6 mm. What fitting it takes →
Which year to buy
- Best 2021 89.5% pass
- Avoid 2020 87.7% pass
Across the 4 years on record, a spread of 1.8 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 86.3%
- Typical mileage
- 33k mi
The 2019 Dacia Duster Essential MOT pass rate is 87.8% of its MOT tests — 1.7 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 33.9% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 1.7× the national share
Tyres make up 33.9% of everything recorded on the 2019 Dacia Duster Essential, against 19.8% nationally — 14.1 points above. Check all four tyres yourself, including the inner shoulders, and look at the date stamp — a tyre can pass on tread and still be six years old.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 31% of this model’s typical repairs come in under £30 in parts — the failures here tend to be the kind that need a garage rather than a bulb.
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 Dacia Duster Essential? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Dacia Duster Essential first registered in 2019 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2019 Dacia Duster Essential compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 89.5%, so this figure is 1.7 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 86.3%. The median 2019 Dacia Duster Essential in this dataset had covered 32,725 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 87.5% of the time, April–September 88.6%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect", noted on 1.77% of tests.
- 902 recorded tests behind this page.
- 87.8% overall pass rate, 86.3% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Dacia Duster Essential, the average is 88.3% — best year 2021 (89.5%), worst 2020 (87.7%).
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
- 902
- Typical mileage (median)
- 32,725 mi
- Make and model
- Dacia Duster Essential
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Headlight Alignment
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Does mileage affect the Duster Essential MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 67% so small gaps stay visible.
Where the Dacia Duster Essential is most common
Across all Duster Essential model years on record (2019–2022): 3,252 Dacia Duster Essential cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 6,539 tests. Glasgow (G) has the most, with 135 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 | Glasgow (G) | 135 | 89.3% |
| 2 | Edinburgh (EH) | 89 | 80.3% |
| 3 | Swansea (SA) | 82 | 92.2% |
| 4 | Cardiff (CF) | 79 | 91.5% |
| 5 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 76 | 87.7% |
| 6 | Hamilton (ML) | 69 | 87.4% |
| 7 | Birmingham (B) | 58 | 94.1% |
| 8 | Sheffield (S) | 56 | 89.9% |
| 9 | Bristol (BS) | 54 | 82.7% |
| 10 | Inverness (IV) | 51 | 93.8% |
| 11 | Northampton (NN) | 48 | 87.5% |
| 12 | Ayr (KA) | 47 | 83.9% |
| 13 | Portsmouth (PO) | 46 | 87.6% |
| 14 | Aberdeen (AB) | 45 | 82.9% |
| 15 | Exeter (EX) | 45 | 85.3% |
| 16 | Stoke On Trent (ST) | 45 | 82.2% |
| 17 | Liverpool (L) | 44 | 85.3% |
| 18 | Warrington (WA) | 44 | 93.2% |
| 19 | Paisley (PA) | 43 | 81.6% |
| 20 | Poole (BH) | 43 | 84.9% |
The twenty areas with the most Dacia Duster Essential 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 Duster Essential
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South West | 138 | 84.8% |
| South East | 136 | 89.7% |
| Scotland | 118 | 82.2% |
| North West | 111 | 86.5% |
| North East | 90 | 87.8% |
| West Midlands | 87 | 94.3% |
| Yorkshire | 62 | 87.1% |
| Wales | 53 | 92.5% |
| East Midlands | 52 | 88.5% |
| East of England | 44 | 90.9% |
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 2019 Duster Essential
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 2019 Duster Essential
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 1.8% of tests
“headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect”
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 wipers and washers 1.7% of tests
“wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively”
Run the wipers with the screen wet: they should clear it in one sweep without smearing or juddering. Top the washer bottle up and check both jets hit the screen.
-
Check the brakes 1.4% of tests
“brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick”
Look through the spokes of each wheel at the pad — less than 3mm of friction material, or a lip on the disc edge, is the usual failure. Check the handbrake holds on a slope with a few clicks, not at the top of its travel.
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 2019 Duster Essential through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £27–£70 — and 31% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £27–£70
- Cheapest common item: wipers does not clear the windscreen…
- £8–£22
- Dearest common item: windscreen damaged
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 50%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 31%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 902 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 Duster Essential, side by side
4 model years on record, from 2019 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 87.7% to 89.5% — a spread of 1.8 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2019 87.8%headlamp aim projected beam image…
- 2020 87.7% headlamp not working on dipped…
- 2021 89.5% wipers does not clear the…
- 2022 88.2% wipers does not clear the…
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 2019 Dacia Duster Essential 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 2019 cars with a similar record
- Mercedes-Benz Cla 87.8%
- Tesla Model 3 87.8%
- Volvo V90 87.8%
- BMW 116 87.8%
- Volvo V90 Momentum + 87.8%
- SEAT Tarraco 87.9%
Closest pass rates among 2019 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 2019 Dacia Duster Essential 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 845 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tyres | 289 | 33.90% | 19.76% | +14.14 |
| Brakes | 232 | 27.20% | 20.89% | +6.31 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 123 | 14.40% | 12.21% | +2.19 |
| Visibility | 75 | 8.80% | 4.97% | +3.83 |
| Non-component advisories | 55 | 6.40% | 4.18% | +2.22 |
| Steering | 21 | 2.50% | 2.57% | −0.07 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 19 | 2.20% | 5.57% | −3.37 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 12 | 1.40% | 5.52% | −4.12 |
| Suspension | 11 | 1.30% | 20.98% | −19.68 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 8 | 0.90% | 1.76% | −0.86 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 1.8% | £30–80 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 1.7% | £8–22 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 1.4% | £18–45 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 1.4% | £45–95 |
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.3% | £30–80 |
| Headlamp not working on dipped beam Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 1.3% | £5–25 |
| Headlamp aim too low Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 1.2% | £30–80 |
| Headlamp not working on dipped beam Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.2% | £5–25 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 1.1% | £30–80 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.1% | £80–200 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 14.8% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 11.0% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 10.1% | £45–110 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 6.7% | £18–45 |
| Non-component advisories Child Seat fitted not allowing full inspection of adult belt Non-component advisories | Advisory | 3.7% | £20–80 |
| Brake discs significantly and obviously worn Brakes | Advisory | 3.1% | £45–110 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 400 | 91.8% | 19,329 mi |
| 30-60k | 418 | 85.4% | 41,863 mi |
| 60-90k | 73 | 80.8% | 70,360 mi |
| 90-120k | 8 | 75.0% | 98,005 mi |
| 120k+ | 3 | 100.0% | 185,623 mi |
Source: 902 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.
2019 Duster Essential MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2019 Dacia Duster Essential?
87.8% of the 902 2019 Dacia Duster Essential tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 89.5% for cars first used in 2019. First-attempt pass rate: 86.3%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2019 Dacia Duster Essential?
The three most recorded items are headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect (1.77%), wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively (1.66%), brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick (1.44%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2019 Dacia Duster Essential MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 91.8% of the time, falling to 100.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2019 Dacia Duster Essential in this dataset had covered 32,725 mi.
Does the season affect the 2019 Dacia Duster Essential MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 87.5% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 88.6%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.