Pass rate
Above average — 20.2 pts ahead of the 75.9% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 102 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£57
Pass rate
Above average — 20.2 pts ahead of the 75.9% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 102 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£57
Most common fault
Suspension
41.2% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Which year to buy
Across the 3 years on record, a spread of 0.8 points. See every year →
The 2011 McLaren MP4-12C MOT pass rate is 96.1% of its MOT tests — 20.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 41.2% of what testers record.
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how McLaren MP4-12C does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Suspension accounts for 41.2% of everything recorded on the 2011 McLaren Mp4-12c, against 21.0% nationally — 20.2 points above. Ask for the front and rear suspension to be checked on a ramp before you buy — worn bushes and broken springs are cheap to look at and expensive to discover at test time.
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 McLaren MP4-12C? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every McLaren MP4-12C first registered in 2011 is combined here — 3 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
Cars of this age and mileage average 75.9%, so this figure is 20.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 96.0%. The median 2011 McLaren MP4-12C in this dataset had covered 24,901 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 92.7% of the time, April–September 98.4%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated", noted on 1.96% 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.
Ball Joint
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 78% so small gaps stay visible.
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 31 | 93.5% |
| East Midlands | 16 | 93.8% |
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 suspension joints 2.0% of tests
“ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated”
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 coil springs 1.0% 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 lights 1.0% of tests
“malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction”
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.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
Across the 8 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £22–£57 — 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 102 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 →
3 model years on record, from 2011 to 2013. Across them the pass rate runs from 95.6% to 96.4% — a spread of 0.8 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 2011 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 17 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suspension | 7 | 41.20% | 20.98% | +20.22 |
| Tyres | 4 | 23.50% | 19.76% | +3.74 |
| Visibility | 2 | 11.80% | 4.97% | +6.83 |
| Brakes | 1 | 5.90% | 20.89% | −14.99 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 1 | 5.90% | 5.52% | +0.38 |
| Steering | 1 | 5.90% | 2.57% | +3.33 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 1 | 5.90% | 0.82% | +5.08 |
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 2.0% | £18–45 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Rectified | 0.98% | £25–65 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 0.98% | £25–65 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 0.98% | £3–12 |
| Srs malfunction indicator lamp warning lamp indicates a fault Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | Major | 0.98% | £3–12 |
| Track rod end ball joint has excessive play Steering | Major | 0.98% | £18–45 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 0.98% | £80–200 |
| Wipers not working Visibility | Major | 0.98% | £8–22 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coil spring corroded so that its cross sectional area is reduced and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 2.0% | £25–65 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 2.0% | £45–95 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 0.98% | £18–45 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 0.98% | £18–45 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 0.98% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth tread pattern not visible over the whole tread area when minimum depth required is 1.0mm Tyres | Advisory | 0.98% | £45–95 |
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 72 | 100.0% | 19,239 mi |
| 30-60k | 29 | 86.2% | 44,217 mi |
| 60-90k | 1 | 100.0% | 65,752 mi |
Source: 102 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.
96.1% of the 102 2011 McLaren MP4-12C tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 75.9% for cars first used in 2011. First-attempt pass rate: 96.0%.
The three most recorded items are ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated (1.96%), coil spring fractured or broken (0.98%), coil spring fractured or broken (0.98%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 100.0% of the time, falling to 100.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2011 McLaren MP4-12C in this dataset had covered 24,901 mi.
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 92.7% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 98.4%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.