Pass rate
Above average — 1.6 pts ahead of the 90.7% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 4,496 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £32–£91
Pass rate
Above average — 1.6 pts ahead of the 90.7% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 4,496 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £32–£91
Most common fault
Tyres
35.7% of faults · 19.8% nationally
mostly tread below the limit, cuts and sidewall bulges.
Which year to buy
Across the 20 years on record, a spread of 24.9 points. See every year →
The 2020 Fiat Panda MOT pass rate is 92.3% of its MOT tests — 1.6 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 35.7% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Tyres make up 35.7% of everything recorded on the 2020 Fiat Panda, against 19.8% nationally — 15.9 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.
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 Fiat Panda? Get an email when these numbers change .
Cars of this age and mileage average 90.7%, so this figure is 1.6 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 91.7%. The median 2020 Fiat Panda in this dataset had covered 17,441 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 92.3% of the time, April–September 92.4%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Coil spring fractured or broken", noted on 1.25% of tests.
Figures count every completed test on this vehicle-year in the dataset, including retests. See methodology for the exact definition.
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Coil Spring
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 58% so small gaps stay visible.
Across all Panda model years on record (2003–2022): 119,635 Fiat Panda cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 329,086 tests. Sheffield (S) has the most, with 2,971 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 | Sheffield (S) | 2,971 | 78.7% |
| 2 | Birmingham (B) | 2,565 | 79.5% |
| 3 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 2,394 | 76.6% |
| 4 | Bristol (BS) | 2,222 | 72.9% |
| 5 | Brighton (BN) | 2,219 | 76.0% |
| 6 | Swansea (SA) | 2,099 | 75.8% |
| 7 | Stoke On Trent (ST) | 2,050 | 76.3% |
| 8 | Ashford (TN) | 1,958 | 77.7% |
| 9 | Norwich (NR) | 1,956 | 77.4% |
| 10 | Portsmouth (PO) | 1,898 | 76.4% |
| 11 | Cardiff (CF) | 1,888 | 74.5% |
| 12 | Exeter (EX) | 1,802 | 73.6% |
| 13 | Coventry (CV) | 1,798 | 80.0% |
| 14 | Edinburgh (EH) | 1,793 | 70.1% |
| 15 | Plymouth (PL) | 1,755 | 74.0% |
| 16 | Glasgow (G) | 1,716 | 71.1% |
| 17 | Nottingham (NG) | 1,640 | 73.9% |
| 18 | Manchester (M) | 1,568 | 77.9% |
| 19 | Northampton (NN) | 1,538 | 77.6% |
| 20 | Truro (TR) | 1,532 | 72.1% |
The twenty areas with the most Fiat Panda 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 →
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 744 | 93.7% |
| South West | 561 | 91.3% |
| North West | 502 | 92.6% |
| Yorkshire | 502 | 93.8% |
| West Midlands | 465 | 92.5% |
| North East | 390 | 92.3% |
| Wales | 385 | 92.7% |
| Scotland | 379 | 87.3% |
| East of England | 302 | 94.0% |
| East Midlands | 207 | 92.3% |
| London | 59 | 91.5% |
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.
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
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 coil springs 1.3% of tests
“coil spring fractured or broken”
Look up inside each wheel arch with a torch, all the way round the spring. A snapped spring usually breaks at the very bottom coil, where a quick glance will not reach.
Check the wipers and washers 1.1% 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 1.1% of tests
“pins and bushes pin or bush 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.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £32–£91 — and 33% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 4,496 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 →
20 model years on record, from 2003 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 67.8% to 92.7% — a spread of 24.9 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
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.
The raw pass rate mostly measures age. The year comparison adds the like-for-like figure, the mileage bands and the repair bill.
Closest pass rates among 2020 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.
Shares of the 2,467 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 | 884 | 35.70% | 19.76% | +15.94 |
| Brakes | 654 | 26.40% | 20.89% | +5.51 |
| Suspension | 351 | 14.20% | 20.98% | −6.78 |
| Visibility | 185 | 7.50% | 4.97% | +2.53 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 117 | 4.70% | 12.21% | −7.51 |
| Non-component advisories | 114 | 4.60% | 4.18% | +0.42 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 84 | 3.40% | 5.57% | −2.17 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 58 | 2.30% | 5.52% | −3.22 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 11 | 0.40% | 0.82% | −0.42 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 9 | 0.40% | 1.76% | −1.36 |
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 1.3% | £25–65 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 1.1% | £8–22 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 1.1% | £40–150 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 0.71% | £8–22 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Rectified | 0.67% | £8–22 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.60% | £30–80 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 0.58% | £45–95 |
| Door condition cannot be opened from outside the vehicle Body, chassis, structure | Major | 0.51% | £80–250 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 0.47% | £80–200 |
| Brake discs significantly and obviously worn Brakes | Major | 0.42% | £45–110 |
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.
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 | 10.8% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 6.9% | £45–110 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 4.6% | £45–95 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 3.4% | £40–150 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 2.4% | £18–45 |
| Tread depth tread pattern not visible over the whole tread area when minimum depth required is 1.0mm Tyres | Advisory | 1.3% | £45–95 |
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 3,653 | 93.4% | 15,235 mi |
| 30-60k | 785 | 87.6% | 39,553 mi |
| 60-90k | 50 | 90.0% | 69,478 mi |
| 90-120k | 5 | 100.0% | 100,987 mi |
| 120k+ | 3 | 66.7% | 125,672 mi |
Source: 4,496 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.
92.3% of the 4,496 2020 Fiat Panda tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 90.7% for cars first used in 2020. First-attempt pass rate: 91.7%.
The three most recorded items are coil spring fractured or broken (1.25%), wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively (1.07%), pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn (1.05%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 93.4% of the time, falling to 66.7% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2020 Fiat Panda in this dataset had covered 17,441 mi.
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 92.3% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 92.4%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.