Pass rate
87.3%
Above average — 3.9 pts behind the 91.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 1,731 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £23–£55
2021 DS Ds MOT pass rate
- 2021
- 13 trims combined
- typical 23,648 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Tyres
40.1% 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 2022 90.4% pass
- Avoid 2021 87.3% pass · this year
Across the 3 years on record, a spread of 3.1 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 85.8%
- Typical mileage
- 24k mi
The 2021 DS Ds MOT pass rate is 87.3% of its MOT tests — 3.9 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 40.1% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 2.0× the national share
Tyres make up 40.1% of everything recorded on the 2021 DS DS, against 19.8% nationally — 20.3 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.
- Falls short of its own age and mileage. Like-for-like, cars this age and mileage expect about 91.2%; this one manages 87.3% — 3.9 points below. Age is a fair excuse; this is not age.
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 DS Ds? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every DS Ds first registered in 2021 is combined here — 13 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2021 DS Ds compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 91.2%, so this figure is 3.9 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 85.8%. The median 2021 DS Ds in this dataset had covered 23,648 mi.
93% of the tests on this vehicle ran on Electric, which passed 87.2% of the time. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 87.0% of the time, April–September 87.7%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively", noted on 4.10% of tests.
- 1,731 recorded tests behind this page.
- 87.3% overall pass rate, 85.8% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the DS Ds, the average is 88.4% — best year 2022 (90.4%), worst 2021 (87.3%).
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
- 1,731
- Typical mileage (median)
- 23,648 mi
- Make and model
- DS Ds
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Wiper Blade
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Ds MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 42% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Electric is the most common here (93% of tests).
Where the DS Ds is most common
Across all Ds model years on record (2020–2022): 3,164 DS Ds cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 4,275 tests. Birmingham (B) has the most, with 118 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 | Birmingham (B) | 118 | 90.2% |
| 2 | Northampton (NN) | 107 | 82.6% |
| 3 | Manchester (M) | 104 | 93.2% |
| 4 | Durham (DH) | 89 | 96.6% |
| 5 | London (W) | 80 | 84.8% |
| 6 | Leicester (LE) | 79 | 88.5% |
| 7 | Glasgow (G) | 78 | 85.8% |
| 8 | Derby (DE) | 66 | 89.4% |
| 9 | Peterborough (PE) | 64 | 79.5% |
| 10 | Sheffield (S) | 64 | 92.6% |
| 11 | Doncaster (DN) | 63 | 89.6% |
| 12 | Bristol (BS) | 61 | 88.5% |
| 13 | Crawley (RH) | 56 | 95.4% |
| 14 | York (YO) | 54 | 87.0% |
| 15 | Cardiff (CF) | 53 | 90.4% |
| 16 | Oxford (OX) | 52 | 86.6% |
| 17 | Edinburgh (EH) | 51 | 82.1% |
| 18 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 51 | 90.7% |
| 19 | Stoke On Trent (ST) | 50 | 87.5% |
| 20 | Walsall (WS) | 49 | 94.6% |
The twenty areas with the most DS Ds 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 Ds
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 274 | 88.0% |
| Scotland | 238 | 81.5% |
| North West | 215 | 93.5% |
| East Midlands | 184 | 85.3% |
| West Midlands | 162 | 86.4% |
| Yorkshire | 152 | 88.8% |
| East of England | 152 | 84.9% |
| London | 123 | 89.4% |
| North East | 92 | 93.5% |
| South West | 86 | 83.7% |
| Wales | 53 | 88.7% |
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 2021 Ds
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 2021 Ds
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 wipers and washers 4.1% 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 suspension joints 1.8% of tests
“ball joint excessively worn”
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 tyre tread 1.5% of tests
“tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm”
Check all four tyres cold, including the inner shoulder where wear hides — 1.6mm across the central three-quarters is the legal limit, and most testers fail at 1.6mm without argument.
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 2021 Ds through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £23–£55 — and 48% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £23–£55
- 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
- 90%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 48%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 1,731 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 Ds, side by side
3 model years on record, from 2020 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 87.3% to 90.4% — a spread of 3.1 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2020 88.0% wipers does not clear the…
- 2021 87.3%wipers does not clear the…
- 2022 90.4% windscreen damaged but not…
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 2021 DS Ds 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 2021 cars with a similar record
- Mercedes-Benz Eqc 87.3%
- Ford Ranger 86.9%
- Citroen C4 86.9%
- Peugeot 508 86.9%
- BMW 330E 87.7%
- Land Rover Discovry 86.7%
Closest pass rates among 2021 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 2021 DS Ds 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 1,197 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 | 482 | 40.10% | 19.76% | +20.34 |
| Suspension | 210 | 17.50% | 20.98% | −3.48 |
| Visibility | 178 | 14.80% | 4.97% | +9.83 |
| Brakes | 147 | 12.20% | 20.89% | −8.69 |
| Non-component advisories | 111 | 9.20% | 4.18% | +5.02 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 45 | 3.70% | 12.21% | −8.51 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 9 | 0.70% | 1.76% | −1.06 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 6 | 0.50% | 5.57% | −5.07 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 5 | 0.40% | 0.82% | −0.42 |
| Steering | 4 | 0.30% | 2.57% | −2.27 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 4.1% | £8–22 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 2.4% | £8–22 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 1.8% | £18–45 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 1.7% | £18–45 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 1.5% | £45–95 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Rectified | 1.5% | £8–22 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 1.4% | £45–95 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.0% | £80–200 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 0.69% | £45–95 |
| Ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 0.58% | £18–45 |
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 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 5.9% | £18–45 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 5.8% | £45–110 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 3.8% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Nail in tyre Non-component advisories | Advisory | 3.1% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth tread pattern not visible over the whole tread area when minimum depth required is 1.0mm Tyres | Advisory | 2.5% | £45–95 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 1,203 | 89.4% | 19,110 mi |
| 30-60k | 478 | 83.7% | 38,556 mi |
| 60-90k | 44 | 75.0% | 68,637 mi |
| 90-120k | 2 | 50.0% | 102,721 mi |
| 120k+ | 4 | 75.0% | 131,998 mi |
Source: 1,731 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.
2021 Ds MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2021 DS Ds?
87.3% of the 1,731 2021 DS Ds tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 91.2% for cars first used in 2021. First-attempt pass rate: 85.8%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2021 DS Ds?
The three most recorded items are wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively (4.10%), wipers blade defective (2.37%), ball joint excessively worn (1.79%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2021 DS Ds MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 89.4% of the time, falling to 75.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2021 DS Ds in this dataset had covered 23,648 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2021 DS Ds?
Electric: 87.2% pass rate across 1,615 tests. Hybrid: 89.9% pass rate across 69 tests. Petrol: 89.4% pass rate across 47 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2021 DS Ds MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 87.0% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 87.7%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.