Pass rate
88.3%
Above average — 2.9 pts behind the 91.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 1,186 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £43–£103
2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla MOT pass rate
- 2021
- 3 trims combined
- typical 26,249 mi
Most common fault
Tyres
52.9% 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 →
Which year to buy
- Best 2021 88.3% pass · this year
- Avoid 2019 85.7% pass
Across the 4 years on record, a spread of 2.6 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 86.9%
- Typical mileage
- 26k mi
The 2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla MOT pass rate is 88.3% of its MOT tests — 2.9 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 52.9% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 2.7× the national share
Tyres make up 52.9% of everything recorded on the 2021 Mercedes-Benz Amg Cla, against 19.8% nationally — 33.1 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.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 10% 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 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla 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 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 91.2%, so this figure is 2.9 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 86.9%. The median 2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla in this dataset had covered 26,249 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 88.2% of the time, April–September 88.4%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Has ply or cords exposed", noted on 4.81% of tests.
- 1,186 recorded tests behind this page.
- 88.3% overall pass rate, 86.9% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla, the average is 87.1% — best year 2021 (88.3%), worst 2019 (85.7%).
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
- 1,186
- Typical mileage (median)
- 26,249 mi
- Make and model
- Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla
- 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 AMG Cla MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 78% so small gaps stay visible.
Regional pass rates for the AMG Cla
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 260 | 88.5% |
| North West | 185 | 90.3% |
| Yorkshire | 116 | 87.1% |
| West Midlands | 113 | 92.9% |
| East of England | 104 | 93.3% |
| Scotland | 99 | 83.8% |
| South West | 81 | 86.4% |
| London | 73 | 87.7% |
| East Midlands | 67 | 80.6% |
| North East | 52 | 86.5% |
| Wales | 36 | 86.1% |
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 AMG Cla
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 AMG Cla
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 1.6% 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 wipers and washers 1.4% of tests
“wipers blade defective”
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 number plates 0.8% of tests
“registration plates does not conform to the specified requirements”
Check both plates are present, legible and correctly spaced, with the postcode of the supplier and the BS AU 145e mark. A private plate in the wrong style is a fail before the car is even looked at.
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 AMG Cla through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £43–£103 — and 10% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £43–£103
- Cheapest common item: wipers blade defective
- £8–£22
- Dearest common item: catalyst emissions lambda reading after 2nd…
- £60–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 70%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 10%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 1,186 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 AMG Cla, side by side
4 model years on record, from 2019 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 85.7% to 88.3% — a spread of 2.6 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2019 85.7% has ply or cords exposed
- 2020 86.6% has ply or cords exposed
- 2021 88.3%has ply or cords exposed
- 2022 86.6% has ply or cords exposed
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 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla 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
- Isuzu D-Max 88.2%
- BMW 420D 88.2%
- Ford Mondeo 88.4%
- Tesla Model 3 88.1%
- Nissan Navara 88.5%
- BMW 840I 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 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla 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 644 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 | 345 | 52.90% | 19.76% | +33.14 |
| Brakes | 106 | 16.30% | 20.89% | −4.59 |
| Non-component advisories | 51 | 7.80% | 4.18% | +3.62 |
| Visibility | 47 | 7.20% | 4.97% | +2.23 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 27 | 4.10% | 12.21% | −8.11 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 22 | 3.40% | 1.76% | +1.64 |
| Suspension | 20 | 3.10% | 20.98% | −17.88 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 12 | 1.80% | 5.52% | −3.72 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 7 | 1.10% | 0.82% | +0.28 |
| Road Wheels | 7 | 1.10% | 0.75% | +0.35 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 4.8% | £45–95 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 2.4% | £45–95 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.6% | £80–200 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 1.4% | £8–22 |
| Registration plates does not conform to the specified requirements Identification of the vehicle | Major | 0.76% | £20–80 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 0.76% | £45–95 |
| Has a bulge, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Major | 0.67% | £45–95 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.67% | £30–80 |
| Catalyst emissions Lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 0.59% | £60–250 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 0.51% | £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 | 12.1% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 5.7% | £18–45 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 2.9% | £45–95 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Advisory | 2.5% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Nail in tyre Non-component advisories | Advisory | 1.9% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth tread pattern not visible over the whole tread area when minimum depth required is 1.0mm Tyres | Advisory | 1.9% | £45–95 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 736 | 89.4% | 20,453 mi |
| 30-60k | 411 | 86.4% | 39,635 mi |
| 60-90k | 39 | 87.2% | 64,447 mi |
Source: 1,186 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 AMG Cla MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla?
88.3% of the 1,186 2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 91.2% for cars first used in 2021. First-attempt pass rate: 86.9%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla?
The three most recorded items are has ply or cords exposed (4.81%), has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords (2.36%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (1.60%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 89.4% of the time, falling to 87.2% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla in this dataset had covered 26,249 mi.
Does the season affect the 2021 Mercedes-Benz AMG Cla MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 88.2% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 88.4%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.