Pass rate
100.0%
Above average — 5.2 pts ahead of the 94.8% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 54 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £50–£140
2023 Land Rover Defender MOT pass rate
- 2023
- 3 trims combined
- typical 22,509 mi
Only 54 tests of this exact model and year are in the DVSA data, below the 100 we ask for before a page goes in the index. The figures are still shown, because they are the only ones there are.
Most common fault
Tyres
40.0% of faults · 19.8% nationally
mostly tread below the limit, cuts and sidewall bulges.
Which year to buy
- Best 2023 100.0% pass · this year
- Avoid 2000 74.7% pass
Across the 22 years on record, a spread of 25.3 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 100.0%
- Typical mileage
- 23k mi
The 2023 Land Rover Defender MOT pass rate is 100.0% of its MOT tests — 5.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 40.0% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Land Rover Defender does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Visibility: 8.0× the national share
Visibility accounts for 40.0% of everything recorded on the 2023 Land Rover Defender, against 5.0% nationally — 35.0 points above. Tyres are still the single largest share at 40.0%, but at 19.8% nationally that one is ordinary. Wipers, washers and a chip in the driver’s eyeline are the three quickest ways to fail a test that the car otherwise deserves to pass.
- Beats its own age and mileage. Once you allow for how old and how far these cars have been driven, the expected pass rate is 94.8% and this one manages 100.0% — 5.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 0% 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 Land Rover Defender? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Land Rover Defender first registered in 2023 is combined here — 3 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2023 Land Rover Defender compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 94.8%, so this figure is 5.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 100.0%. The median 2023 Land Rover Defender in this dataset had covered 22,509 mi.
The single most recorded failure item is "Window excessively tinted but not adversely affecting driver's view", noted on 1.85% of tests.
- 54 recorded tests behind this page.
- 100.0% overall pass rate, 100.0% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Land Rover Defender, the average is 80.3% — best year 2023 (100.0%), worst 2000 (74.7%).
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
- 54
- Typical mileage (median)
- 22,509 mi
- Make and model
- Land Rover Defender
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Replacement Service Parts
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Defender MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 92% so small gaps stay visible.
What fails a 2023 Defender
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 2023 Defender
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 windscreen 1.9% of tests
“windscreen excessively tinted”
Check the driver’s side of the screen within the swept area for chips and cracks; anything larger than 10mm in the driver’s central view is a fail. Most chips can be resin-repaired for far less than a new screen.
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 2023 Defender through its MOT
Across the 2 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £50–£140 — and 0% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 2 common items
- £50–£140
- Cheapest common item: window excessively tinted
- £20–£80
- Dearest common item: windscreen excessively tinted
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 50%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 0%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 54 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 Defender, side by side
22 model years on record, from 2000 to 2023. Across them the pass rate runs from 74.7% to 100.0% — a spread of 25.3 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 74.7% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2001 75.0% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2002 75.8% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2003 75.7% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2004 76.2% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2005 76.9% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2006 76.8% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2007 77.3% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2008 78.6% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2009 77.9% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2010 78.9% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2011 79.6% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2012 81.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2013 82.8% track rod end ball joint dust…
- 2014 85.0% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2015 87.2% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2016 90.0% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2019 85.1% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2020 92.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2021 93.9% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2022 94.3% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2023 100.0%window excessively tinted 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 2023 Land Rover Defender 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 2023 cars with a similar record
- Levc Tx 97.0%
- Mercedes-Benz Eqe 96.5%
- Ford Puma 96.5%
- Toyota Corolla 95.7%
- Kia Niro 95.5%
- Polestar Polestar 94.6%
Closest pass rates among 2023 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 2023 Land Rover Defender 2 failure items · 2 advisories · 3 inspection categories · mileage brackets · all of it in the page, none of it above the fold
Every inspection category
Shares of the 5 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 | 2 | 40.00% | 19.76% | +20.24 |
| Visibility | 2 | 40.00% | 4.97% | +35.03 |
| Non-component advisories | 1 | 20.00% | 4.18% | +15.82 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Window excessively tinted but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.9% | £20–80 |
| Windscreen excessively tinted but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.9% | £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 | 3.7% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Nail in tyre Non-component advisories | Advisory | 1.9% | £45–95 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 36 | 100.0% | 15,677 mi |
| 30-60k | 14 | 100.0% | 41,560 mi |
| 60-90k | 2 | 100.0% | 79,757 mi |
| 90-120k | 1 | 100.0% | 91,000 mi |
Source: 54 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.
2023 Defender MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2023 Land Rover Defender?
100.0% of the 54 2023 Land Rover Defender tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 94.8% for cars first used in 2023. First-attempt pass rate: 100.0%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2023 Land Rover Defender?
The three most recorded items are window excessively tinted but not adversely affecting driver's view (1.85%), windscreen excessively tinted but not adversely affecting driver's view (1.85%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2023 Land Rover Defender MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 100.0% of the time, falling to 100.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2023 Land Rover Defender in this dataset had covered 22,509 mi.