Pass rate
72.8%
Below average — 0.2 pts ahead of the 72.6% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 1,566 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £78–£210
2003 Rover 45 MOT pass rate
- 2003
- typical 75,524 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Suspension
24.2% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Which year to buy
- Best 2006 73.6% pass
- Avoid 2000 69.0% pass
Across the 7 years on record, a spread of 4.6 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 65.6%
- Typical mileage
- 76k mi
The 2003 Rover 45 MOT pass rate is 72.8% of its MOT tests — about what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 24.2% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Body & chassis: 2.9× the national share
Body & chassis accounts for 15.9% of everything recorded on the 2003 Rover 45, against 5.6% nationally — 10.3 points above. Suspension is still the single largest share at 24.2%, but at 21.0% nationally that one is ordinary. Look underneath for corrosion near the jacking points and suspension mounts; surface rust is normal, flaking metal is not.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 5% 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 Rover 45? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2003 Rover 45 compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.6%, so this figure is 0.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 65.6%. The median 2003 Rover 45 in this dataset had covered 75,524 mi.
The most common fuel recorded here is Petrol — 85% of tests, with a 72.7% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 73.1% of the time, April–September 72.5%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated", noted on 6.77% of tests.
- 1,566 recorded tests behind this page.
- 72.8% overall pass rate, 65.6% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Rover 45, the average is 71.7% — best year 2006 (73.6%), worst 2000 (69.0%).
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
- 1,566
- Typical mileage (median)
- 75,524 mi
- Make and model
- Rover 45
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Body Panel Repair
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Does mileage affect the 45 MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 62% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (85% of tests).
Where the Rover 45 is most common
Across all 45 model years on record (2000–2006): 3,042 Rover 45 cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 7,671 tests. Birmingham (B) has the most, with 200 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 | Birmingham (B) | 200 | 76.0% |
| 2 | Peterborough (PE) | 90 | 70.4% |
| 3 | Stourbridge (DY) | 81 | 69.1% |
| 4 | Coventry (CV) | 65 | 72.5% |
| 5 | Derby (DE) | 59 | 71.3% |
| 6 | Ashford (TN) | 59 | 74.6% |
| 7 | Bristol (BS) | 58 | 65.0% |
| 8 | Walsall (WS) | 55 | 73.4% |
| 9 | Leicester (LE) | 51 | 76.4% |
| 10 | Sheffield (S) | 51 | 71.9% |
| 11 | Portsmouth (PO) | 50 | 65.5% |
| 12 | Oxford (OX) | 50 | 72.3% |
| 13 | Guildford (GU) | 47 | 75.0% |
| 14 | Nottingham (NG) | 46 | 69.1% |
| 15 | Gloucester (GL) | 45 | 64.3% |
| 16 | Plymouth (PL) | 44 | 62.2% |
| 17 | Exeter (EX) | 42 | 65.6% |
| 18 | Yeovil (BA) | 42 | 62.7% |
| 19 | Taunton (TA) | 41 | 76.0% |
| 20 | Stockport (SK) | 41 | 68.3% |
The twenty areas with the most Rover 45 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 →
Regional pass rates for the 45
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 312 | 77.6% |
| West Midlands | 263 | 75.7% |
| South West | 263 | 65.0% |
| East of England | 182 | 70.9% |
| North West | 166 | 67.5% |
| East Midlands | 129 | 75.2% |
| Yorkshire | 84 | 72.6% |
| Wales | 50 | 74.0% |
| Scotland | 44 | 75.0% |
| London | 40 | 82.5% |
| North East | 33 | 78.8% |
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.
What fails a 2003 45
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 2003 45
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 corrosion 6.7% of tests
“component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength”
Look under the sills, around the jacking points and where the suspension mounts meet the body. Flaking, holed or crumbly metal fails; a brown stain on sound metal does not.
-
Check the suspension joints 5.4% 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 windscreen 2.9% 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.
What it costs to get a 2003 45 through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £78–£210 — and 5% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £78–£210
- Cheapest common item: stop lamp not working
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: component mounting prescribed areas…
- £180–£450
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 30%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 5%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 1,566 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 45, side by side
7 model years on record, from 2000 to 2006. Across them the pass rate runs from 69.0% to 73.6% — a spread of 4.6 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 69.0% component mounting prescribed…
- 2001 71.2% component mounting prescribed…
- 2002 72.2% component mounting prescribed…
- 2003 72.8%joints constant velocity boot…
- 2004 72.3% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2005 70.5% component mounting prescribed…
- 2006 73.6% joints constant velocity boot…
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 2003 Rover 45 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 2003 cars with a similar record
- Volkswagen Golf 72.8%
- Toyota YARIS 73.0%
- Honda Jazz 72.6%
- Mitsubishi Shogun 72.6%
- Skoda Octavia 72.6%
- Vauxhall Astra 72.5%
Closest pass rates among 2003 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 2003 Rover 45 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 4,239 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 | 1,048 | 24.20% | 20.98% | +3.22 |
| Brakes | 902 | 20.80% | 20.89% | −0.09 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 688 | 15.90% | 5.57% | +10.33 |
| Tyres | 506 | 11.70% | 19.76% | −8.06 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 320 | 7.40% | 12.21% | −4.81 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 307 | 7.10% | 5.52% | +1.58 |
| Visibility | 149 | 3.40% | 4.97% | −1.57 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 134 | 3.10% | 1.76% | +1.34 |
| Non-component advisories | 112 | 2.60% | 4.18% | −1.58 |
| Steering | 73 | 1.70% | 2.57% | −0.87 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure | Minor | 6.8% | £80–250 |
| Component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength Suspension | Major | 6.7% | £180–450 |
| Joints constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Body, chassis, structure | Major | 6.1% | £80–250 |
| Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 5.4% | £18–45 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 2.9% | £80–200 |
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Major | 2.8% | £80–180 |
| Service brake performance excessively binding Brakes | Major | 2.8% | £60–150 |
| Exhaust system has a major leak of exhaust gases Body, chassis, structure | Major | 2.6% | £45–120 |
| Rbt (sp) efficiency below requirements Brakes | Major | 2.5% | £45–110 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 2.2% | £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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Advisory | 18.3% | £80–180 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 14.4% | £40–150 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 14.1% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 11.6% | £45–95 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 10.2% | £200–700 |
| Component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength Suspension | Advisory | 10.1% | £180–450 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 71 | 84.5% | 22,780 mi |
| 30-60k | 452 | 73.7% | 46,639 mi |
| 60-90k | 527 | 71.0% | 75,145 mi |
| 90-120k | 354 | 70.9% | 103,055 mi |
| 120k+ | 161 | 75.8% | 146,316 mi |
Source: 1,566 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.
2003 45 MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2003 Rover 45?
72.8% of the 1,566 2003 Rover 45 tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.6% for cars first used in 2003. First-attempt pass rate: 65.6%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2003 Rover 45?
The three most recorded items are joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated (6.77%), component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength (6.70%), joints constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt (6.07%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2003 Rover 45 MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 84.5% of the time, falling to 75.8% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2003 Rover 45 in this dataset had covered 75,524 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2003 Rover 45?
Petrol: 72.7% pass rate across 1,337 tests. Diesel: 73.2% pass rate across 228 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2003 Rover 45 MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 73.1% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 72.5%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.