Pass rate
Above average — 12.7 pts ahead of the 84.0% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 122 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£63
Pass rate
Above average — 12.7 pts ahead of the 84.0% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 122 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£63
Most common fault
Tyres
30.0% of faults · 19.8% nationally
mostly tread below the limit, cuts and sidewall bulges.
Which year to buy
Across the 17 years on record, a spread of 6.8 points. See every year →
The 2016 Rolls-Royce Phantom MOT pass rate is 96.7% of its MOT tests — 12.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 30.0% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Tyres make up 30.0% of everything recorded on the 2016 Rolls-Royce Phantom, against 19.8% nationally — 10.2 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.
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 Rolls-Royce Phantom? Get an email when these numbers change .
Cars of this age and mileage average 84.0%, so this figure is 12.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 96.6%. The median 2016 Rolls-Royce Phantom in this dataset had covered 16,657 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 95.6% of the time, April–September 97.4%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt", noted on 0.82% 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.
Across all Phantom model years on record (2003–2020): 1,337 Rolls-Royce Phantom cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 2,354 tests. Enfield (EN) has the most, with 103 cars tested there. Cars are counted by the postcode area of the MOT station, so this is where they were tested, not necessarily where their owners live.
| # | Postcode area | Cars | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enfield (EN) | 103 | 98.4% |
| 2 | Birmingham (B) | 93 | 97.3% |
| 3 | Hounslow (TW) | 87 | 95.5% |
| 4 | London (NW) | 71 | 95.6% |
| 5 | Chelmsford (CM) | 58 | 97.9% |
| 6 | Warrington (WA) | 43 | 91.3% |
| 7 | Bradford (BD) | 35 | 100.0% |
| 8 | Nottingham (NG) | 33 | 96.6% |
| 9 | London (SW) | 30 | 91.7% |
| 10 | London (E) | 28 | 100.0% |
| 11 | Slough (SL) | 27 | 97.8% |
| 12 | London (W) | 27 | 97.5% |
| 13 | Leicester (LE) | 24 | 95.7% |
| 14 | Edinburgh (EH) | 22 | 100.0% |
| 15 | Colchester (CO) | 22 | 96.8% |
| 16 | Hayes (UB) | 20 | 100.0% |
| 17 | Leeds (LS) | 19 | — |
| 18 | Blackburn (BB) | 17 | 90.2% |
| 19 | Romford (RM) | 17 | — |
| 20 | Derby (DE) | 17 | — |
The twenty areas with the most Rolls-Royce Phantom cars in the record, sorted by car count — sort the columns for a different question. Cars tested at a station whose postcode area could not be resolved are counted in the model's total but in no area, so the shares add up to slightly under 100% even across every area, and an area's cars are a subset of the model's. Pass rate is blank below 30 tests in an area, where a percentage is noise rather than a finding. How this model's pass rate varies by postcode →
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 47 | 93.6% |
| West Midlands | 17 | 100.0% |
| London | 17 | 100.0% |
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 0.8% of tests
“ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt”
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 wipers and washers 0.8% of tests
“washers provides insufficient washer liquid”
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.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
Across the 5 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £22–£63 — and 40% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 122 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 →
17 model years on record, from 2003 to 2020. Across them the pass rate runs from 93.2% to 100.0% — a spread of 6.8 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 2016 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 20 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 | 6 | 30.00% | 19.76% | +10.24 |
| Brakes | 5 | 25.00% | 20.89% | +4.11 |
| Suspension | 4 | 20.00% | 20.98% | −0.98 |
| Visibility | 2 | 10.00% | 4.97% | +5.03 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 2 | 10.00% | 0.82% | +9.18 |
| Non-component advisories | 1 | 5.00% | 4.18% | +0.82 |
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 0.82% | £18–45 |
| Buckle not functioning as intended Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | Major | 0.82% | £40–120 |
| Likely to become detached in the event of a collision Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | Major | 0.82% | £40–120 |
| Washers provides insufficient washer liquid Visibility | Rectified | 0.82% | £5–15 |
| Washers provides insufficient washer liquid Visibility | Major | 0.82% | £5–15 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 3.3% | £18–45 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 3.3% | £45–95 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 2.5% | £18–45 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 1.6% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 0.82% | £45–110 |
| Non-component advisories Nail in tyre Non-component advisories | Advisory | 0.82% | £45–95 |
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 81 | 100.0% | 10,136 mi |
| 30-60k | 29 | 86.2% | 41,703 mi |
| 60-90k | 7 | 100.0% | 78,638 mi |
| 90-120k | 3 | 100.0% | 111,689 mi |
| 120k+ | 2 | 100.0% | 127,144 mi |
Source: 122 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.
96.7% of the 122 2016 Rolls-Royce Phantom tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 84.0% for cars first used in 2016. First-attempt pass rate: 96.6%.
The three most recorded items are ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt (0.82%), buckle not functioning as intended (0.82%), likely to become detached in the event of a collision (0.82%). 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 2016 Rolls-Royce Phantom in this dataset had covered 16,657 mi.
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 95.6% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 97.4%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.