Pass rate
88.0%
Above average — 3.2 pts behind the 91.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 11,173 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £32–£73
2021 Land Rover Discovery MOT pass rate
- 2021
- 3 trims combined
- typical 33,033 mi
Most common fault
Tyres
36.9% 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 →
1.8 pts up across model years — 2.2% in 2000, 4.0% in 2022.
Which year to buy
- Best 2023 92.9% pass
- Avoid 2006 74.8% pass
Across the 24 years on record, a spread of 18.1 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 86.6%
- Typical mileage
- 33k mi
The 2021 Land Rover Discovery MOT pass rate is 88.0% of its MOT tests — 3.2 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 36.9% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Land Rover Discovery does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 1.9× the national share
Tyres make up 36.9% of everything recorded on the 2021 Land Rover Discovery, against 19.8% nationally — 17.1 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.
- Falls short of its own age and mileage. Like-for-like, cars this age and mileage expect about 91.2%; this one manages 88.0% — 3.2 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 Land Rover Discovery? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Land Rover Discovery first registered in 2021 is combined here — 3 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2021 Land Rover Discovery compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 91.2%, so this figure is 3.2 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 86.6%. The median 2021 Land Rover Discovery in this dataset had covered 33,033 mi.
47% of the tests on this vehicle ran on Diesel, which passed 88.2% of the time. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 88.5% of the time, April–September 87.5%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords", noted on 3.35% of tests.
- 11,173 recorded tests behind this page.
- 88.0% overall pass rate, 86.6% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Land Rover Discovery, the average is 83.5% — best year 2023 (92.9%), worst 2006 (74.8%).
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
- 11,173
- Typical mileage (median)
- 33,033 mi
- Make and model
- Land Rover Discovery
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Tyres
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Discovery MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 77% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Diesel is the most common here (47% of tests).
Regional pass rates for the Discovery
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 2,568 | 88.2% |
| East of England | 1,340 | 86.3% |
| North West | 1,235 | 89.2% |
| Yorkshire | 1,070 | 88.1% |
| South West | 1,041 | 85.3% |
| Scotland | 1,018 | 86.3% |
| West Midlands | 952 | 89.2% |
| East Midlands | 737 | 89.0% |
| London | 479 | 91.0% |
| North East | 411 | 91.5% |
| Wales | 322 | 88.5% |
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.
What fails a 2021 Discovery
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 Discovery
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 2.9% 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 windscreen 2.3% of tests
“windscreen damaged”
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.
-
Check the brakes 0.8% 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 2021 Discovery through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £32–£73 — and 44% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £32–£73
- Cheapest common item: malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or…
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: windscreen damaged
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 90%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 44%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 11,173 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 Discovery, side by side
24 model years on record, from 2000 to 2023. Across them the pass rate runs from 74.8% to 92.9% — a spread of 18.1 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 75.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2001 74.8% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2002 75.4% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2003 76.1% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2004 75.5% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2005 75.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2006 74.8% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2007 75.9% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2008 76.7% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2009 77.2% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2010 78.8% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2011 80.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2012 81.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2013 82.0% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2014 83.5% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2015 85.9% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2016 86.2% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2017 87.2% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2018 88.1% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2019 87.6% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2020 87.7% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2021 88.0%has a cut in excess of the…
- 2022 88.5% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2023 92.9% has a cut in excess of 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 2021 Land Rover Discovery 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
- Tesla Model 3 88.1%
- Isuzu D-Max 88.2%
- BMW 420D 88.2%
- BMW 330E 87.7%
- Ford Mondeo 88.4%
- Nissan Navara 88.5%
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 Land Rover Discovery 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 8,527 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 | 3,164 | 36.90% | 19.76% | +17.14 |
| Brakes | 2,339 | 27.30% | 20.89% | +6.41 |
| Visibility | 1,170 | 13.70% | 4.97% | +8.73 |
| Non-component advisories | 616 | 7.20% | 4.18% | +3.02 |
| Suspension | 595 | 6.90% | 20.98% | −14.08 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 337 | 3.90% | 12.21% | −8.31 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 135 | 1.60% | 5.52% | −3.92 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 73 | 0.90% | 5.57% | −4.67 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 56 | 0.70% | 1.76% | −1.06 |
| Road Wheels | 42 | 0.50% | 0.75% | −0.25 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 3.4% | £45–95 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 2.9% | £8–22 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 2.8% | £8–22 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 2.3% | £80–200 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 2.0% | £45–95 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Rectified | 1.2% | £8–22 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 0.84% | £18–45 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 0.77% | £3–12 |
| Has a bulge, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Major | 0.63% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 0.61% | £45–95 |
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 | 11.4% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 11.0% | £45–110 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 6.8% | £18–45 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 3.7% | £45–95 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Advisory | 3.3% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Child Seat fitted not allowing full inspection of adult belt Non-component advisories | Advisory | 3.2% | £20–80 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 4,635 | 91.0% | 21,560 mi |
| 30-60k | 5,536 | 85.9% | 41,163 mi |
| 60-90k | 855 | 85.4% | 70,708 mi |
| 90-120k | 123 | 90.2% | 99,901 mi |
| 120k+ | 23 | 91.3% | 133,427 mi |
Source: 11,173 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 Discovery MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2021 Land Rover Discovery?
88.0% of the 11,173 2021 Land Rover Discovery tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 91.2% for cars first used in 2021. First-attempt pass rate: 86.6%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2021 Land Rover Discovery?
The three most recorded items are has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords (3.35%), wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively (2.93%), wipers blade defective (2.83%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2021 Land Rover Discovery MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 91.0% of the time, falling to 91.3% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2021 Land Rover Discovery in this dataset had covered 33,033 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2021 Land Rover Discovery?
Diesel: 88.2% pass rate across 5,218 tests. Hybrid: 87.4% pass rate across 3,204 tests. Petrol: 88.4% pass rate across 2,740 tests. Other: 100.0% pass rate across 11 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2021 Land Rover Discovery MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 88.5% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 87.5%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.