Your car failed its MOT — what to do next
Five questions decide everything: can you drive it, is a retest free, what will the repair cost, is the result wrong, and what happens to the advisories. Here is each one, with the rules as published by the DVSA and the costs from 111 million real tests.
- Can you drive it?
- Only if… old MOT valid, nothing “dangerous”
- Free retest
- Left for repair retested within 10 working days
- Full test fee
- £54.85 maximum for a car, no VAT
- Appeal window
- 14 days working days, from the test
What to do, in order
- Today
Read the category of every defect before anything else.
Dangerous means the car cannot be driven anywhere, whatever your old certificate says. Major means it can move only to a repairer or a booked test — and only if the previous MOT has not expired. Everything else is information.
- Today
Get the number before you accept a quote.
Photograph the sheet into the repair calculator and it totals a typical UK bracket, separating what must be fixed from what can wait. Ten seconds, and it is the difference between a quote and a comparison.
- By the next working day
If the failures were listed items only, the retest is free.
Lamps, tyres, wheels, mirrors, plates, wipers, glass, horn, seats, belts, battery, fuel cap, TPMS — take the car away, fix those, bring it back before the end of the next working day and pay nothing for the retest. Brakes, suspension and structure do not qualify.
- Within 10 working days
Leaving it at the station is the other free route; coming back later is not.
Repaired and retested on site within 10 working days: no retest fee. Taken away and returned later within the same window: partial fee. After 10 working days: a full test at up to £54.85.
- Within 14 working days
Only if you think the result is wrong: appeal — before repairing.
Form VT17 to the DVSA. Do not start the repair first, or the examiner has nothing to look at.
1. What the four categories mean
Since 2018 an MOT result sorts defects into four columns, and only the first two fail the car. The category, not the repair, decides whether you can drive it away.
| Category | Fails the test? | Can you drive it? | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dangerous | Yes | No — not even home | A direct risk to road safety or the environment. Driving it is an offence: up to £2,500, three penalty points and a possible ban. |
| Major | Yes | Only if your old MOT is still valid — and then only to a repairer or a pre-booked test | A defect that affects safety, the environment or the car's brake, steering or structural systems. Must be repaired before the car is used normally. |
| Minor | No | Yes | Recorded on the certificate, does not fail the test. Worth fixing before it becomes a major. |
| Advisory | No | Yes | Monitor and repair if necessary. Not a defect yet — the same item is often a failure a year later. |
Defect categories as defined by the DVSA. This page explains the rules; it is not legal advice, and the DVSA's own guidance is the authority.
2. Can I drive it away?
Two conditions, both needed: your previous MOT is still in date, and the new result lists no dangerous defect. A failed test does not cancel a certificate that has not yet expired.
- Old MOT valid, major defects only — drive it, straight to the repairer.
- Old MOT expired — only to a place of repair or a pre-booked test. Otherwise up to £1,000 for no certificate, and possibly no insurance cover.
A dangerous defect overrides both cases: the car does not move again until it is repaired, even with a valid certificate in the glovebox.
3. Will the retest cost anything?
Three cases. The cheap one applies to far more people than realise it.
| What you do | What you pay | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Leave it at the test station for repair | No retest fee | Retested there within 10 working days, and it does not leave the site in between. |
| Take it away and bring it back the next working day | No retest fee | Only if it failed solely on a listed item: lamps (not headlamp aim), tyres, wheels, mirrors, registration plates, wipers and washers, windscreen glass, horn, doors, seats, seat belts (not anchorages), battery, fuel filler cap, TPMS, VIN, towbars and a few others. Not brakes, suspension or structure. |
| Take it away and bring it back later | Partial retest fee | Within 10 working days. Less than a full test, but the station can charge. |
| Anything else | Full test fee, up to £54.85 | After 10 working days, or if the station changes ownership in between. |
A partial retest covers the failed items plus anything the repair could have affected — not a second full inspection, and a new defect on the day is another bill. Full fee: £54.85 for a car or a van up to 3,500 kg, no VAT, and £57.30 for a 9-to-12-seat minibus.
The listed-items rule is set out in the DVSA MOT testing guide; the test-station rule in its retest guidance. Stations may charge less than the maximum fee, never more.
4. What will the repair cost?
These ten items are most of what testers record across 2023–2025 of tests. The share is how often the item appears; the bracket is our estimate of a typical UK repair.
| Failure | Recorded in | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| Tread depth below 1.6 mm | 17.4% | £45–£95 |
| Brake discs seriously weakened | 9.4% | £45–£110 |
| Tyre has a tear | 9.2% | £45–£95 |
| Brake pads under 1.5 mm | 8.6% | £18–£45 |
| Suspension pin or bush excessively worn | 8.0% | £40–£150 |
| Engine oil leaking excessively | 5.4% | £200–£700 |
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded | 4.6% | £80–£180 |
| Shock absorber leaking | 3.9% | £30–£75 |
| Coil spring corroded | 3.6% | £25–£65 |
| Registration plate lamp inoperative (multiple lamps) | 3.2% | £5–£20 |
For your own sheet, photograph it into the calculator — it reads the tester's wording and totals must-fix separately from advisories. The full price list covers all 83 items, and per-model costs show which cars run cheap over a hundred tests.
5. If you think the result is wrong
Talk to the test station first — most disputes are a misunderstanding of the inspection manual.
If you still disagree, appeal to the DVSA using form VT17 within 14 working days
of the test. Email it to csccomplaints@dvsa.gov.uk. A DVSA examiner will contact you
within five working days.
- Do not repair the car first. Once the defect is fixed, the examiner cannot assess what it was.
- If DVSA decides to re-examine the car, you pay the full test fee again.
- If the appeal succeeds, that fee is refunded. DVSA cannot award compensation — that is for you and the station.
- If your car passed and you think it should have failed, the window is 28 days, or 3 months for corrosion.
- If the certificate itself is wrong (mileage, vehicle details), that is a separate correction process, not an appeal.
6. What about the advisories?
Nothing forces you to act on them, which is exactly why they are worth acting on. In our data the single most common item is tread depth approaching the limit, recorded in 17.4% of all tests, and the same item is the most common outright failure once it crosses 1.6 mm. An advisory is usually the cheap, convenient version of a failure you would otherwise meet at the roadside or on a wet Monday with a retest fee attached.
Every advisory item has a page here showing how often it is recorded, what the repair costs, and which models record it most: the full list of MOT failures.
Rules checked against GOV.UK and the DVSA MOT testing guide on 5 November 2026 (max car test fee £54.85; partial retest windows; appeal deadlines of 14 working days for a fail, 28 days or 3 months for a pass). Rules and fees change — check GOV.UK before relying on a figure. The cost estimates are ours, built from UK parts prices, and the failure rates are computed from DVSA test data.