Pass rate
Below average — 1.7 pts ahead of the 72.5% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 65,425 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£65
Pass rate
Below average — 1.7 pts ahead of the 72.5% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 65,425 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£65
Most common fault
Suspension
23.4% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Part only £35–£75 for Suspension pin or bush excessively worn. What fitting it takes →
4.1 pts up across model years — 0.6% in 2000, 4.7% in 2022.
Which year to buy
Across the 24 years on record, a spread of 24.4 points. See every year →
The 2006 Nissan Micra MOT pass rate is 74.2% of its MOT tests — 1.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 23.4% of what testers record.
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Nissan Micra does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Lamps & electrics make up 22.5% of everything recorded on the 2006 Nissan Micra, against 12.2% nationally — 10.3 points above. Suspension is still the single largest share at 23.4%, but at 21.0% nationally that one is ordinary. Walk round the car with the lights on before the test: bulbs, indicators and number-plate lamps are the cheapest failures to prevent and among the most common.
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 Nissan Micra? Get an email when these numbers change .
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.5%, so this figure is 1.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 66.5%. The median 2006 Nissan Micra in this dataset had covered 84,552 mi.
The most common fuel recorded here is Petrol — 99% of tests, with a 74.3% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 74.0% of the time, April–September 74.6%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect", noted on 4.34% 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.
Headlight Alignment
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 60% so small gaps stay visible.
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (99% of tests).
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 15,583 | 77.2% |
| South West | 8,488 | 71.0% |
| North West | 7,654 | 73.7% |
| East of England | 6,254 | 75.6% |
| West Midlands | 5,585 | 76.2% |
| Yorkshire | 5,131 | 72.1% |
| East Midlands | 4,025 | 72.8% |
| London | 3,905 | 82.1% |
| Scotland | 3,150 | 65.1% |
| North East | 3,077 | 69.9% |
| Wales | 2,572 | 71.9% |
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 lights 4.3% of tests
“headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect”
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.
Check the suspension joints 3.2% of tests
“ball joint excessively worn”
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 windscreen 3.1% 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.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £22–£65 — and 42% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 65,425 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 →
24 model years on record, from 2000 to 2023. Across them the pass rate runs from 69.4% to 93.8% — a spread of 24.4 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 2006 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 172,287 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 | 41,315 | 23.40% | 20.98% | +2.42 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 39,634 | 22.50% | 12.21% | +10.29 |
| Tyres | 24,613 | 14.00% | 19.76% | −5.76 |
| Brakes | 22,832 | 12.90% | 20.89% | −7.99 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 11,568 | 6.60% | 5.52% | +1.08 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 9,043 | 5.10% | 5.57% | −0.47 |
| Visibility | 8,784 | 5.00% | 4.97% | +0.03 |
| Non-component advisories | 5,523 | 3.10% | 4.18% | −1.08 |
| Steering | 4,762 | 2.70% | 2.57% | +0.13 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 4,213 | 2.40% | 1.76% | +0.64 |
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 4.3% | £30–80 |
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of a single lamp or all lamps Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 4.2% | £5–20 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 3.8% | £5–25 |
| Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 3.6% | £5–25 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 3.2% | £18–45 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 3.1% | £80–200 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 3.0% | £40–150 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 2.8% | £25–65 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 2.7% | £18–45 |
| Individual direction indicators incorrect colour Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 2.5% | £3–12 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 17.8% | £45–95 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 15.2% | £40–150 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 11.7% | £45–95 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 11.3% | £200–700 |
| Coil spring corroded so that its cross sectional area is reduced and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 9.1% | £25–65 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 8.9% | £45–110 |
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 2,036 | 89.1% | 23,082 mi |
| 30-60k | 13,016 | 80.6% | 47,486 mi |
| 60-90k | 21,684 | 75.0% | 75,280 mi |
| 90-120k | 17,607 | 70.8% | 103,673 mi |
| 120k+ | 11,019 | 68.1% | 143,103 mi |
Source: 65,425 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.
74.2% of the 65,425 2006 Nissan Micra tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.5% for cars first used in 2006. First-attempt pass rate: 66.5%.
The three most recorded items are headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect (4.34%), registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of a single lamp or all lamps (4.23%), position lamp not working (3.78%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 89.1% of the time, falling to 68.1% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2006 Nissan Micra in this dataset had covered 84,552 mi.
Petrol: 74.3% pass rate across 64,725 tests. Diesel: 70.8% pass rate across 699 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 74.0% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 74.6%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.