Pass rate
87.6%
Above average — 1.6 pts ahead of the 86.0% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 15,839 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £26–£75
2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo MOT pass rate
- 2017
- 2 trims combined
- typical 31,139 mi
Most common fault
Tyres
35.7% 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 →
1.5 pts down across model years — 5.7% in 2004, 4.2% in 2019.
Which year to buy
- Best 2019 91.5% pass
- Avoid 2001 70.3% pass
Across the 20 years on record, a spread of 21.2 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 86.1%
- Typical mileage
- 31k mi
The 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo MOT pass rate is 87.6% of its MOT tests — 1.6 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 35.7% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Smart Mcc Fortwo does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 1.8× the national share
Tyres make up 35.7% of everything recorded on the 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo, against 19.8% nationally — 15.9 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.
- Failures here tend to be cheap ones. 60% of the repairs this model fails on cost under £30 in parts. The pass rate matters less than what a bad afternoon at the test centre actually costs you.
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 Smart Mcc Fortwo? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Smart Mcc Fortwo first registered in 2017 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 86.0%, so this figure is 1.6 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 86.1%. The median 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo in this dataset had covered 31,139 mi.
The most common fuel recorded here is Petrol — 98% of tests, with a 87.5% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 87.5% of the time, April–September 87.7%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources", noted on 1.95% of tests.
- 15,839 recorded tests behind this page.
- 87.6% overall pass rate, 86.1% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Smart Mcc Fortwo, the average is 82.4% — best year 2019 (91.5%), worst 2001 (70.3%).
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
- 15,839
- Typical mileage (median)
- 31,139 mi
- Make and model
- Smart Mcc Fortwo
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Number Plate Lamp
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Fortwo MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 65% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (98% of tests).
Regional pass rates for the Fortwo
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 4,897 | 88.1% |
| East of England | 2,326 | 87.0% |
| London | 1,996 | 87.4% |
| South West | 1,868 | 88.4% |
| North West | 945 | 89.7% |
| West Midlands | 930 | 86.7% |
| Yorkshire | 791 | 87.0% |
| East Midlands | 751 | 88.5% |
| Scotland | 692 | 81.4% |
| Wales | 362 | 89.2% |
| North East | 277 | 87.7% |
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 2017 Fortwo
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 2017 Fortwo
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 1.9% of tests
“registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources”
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 windscreen 1.9% 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.
-
Check the wipers and washers 1.9% of tests
“wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively”
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.
What it costs to get a 2017 Fortwo through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £26–£75 — and 60% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £26–£75
- Cheapest common item: stop lamp not working
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: catalyst emissions lambda reading after 2nd…
- £60–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 80%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 60%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 15,839 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 Fortwo, side by side
20 model years on record, from 2001 to 2020. Across them the pass rate runs from 70.3% to 91.5% — a spread of 21.2 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2001 70.3% headlamp aim projected beam image…
- 2002 72.4% stop lamp not working
- 2003 73.5% headlamp lens slightly defective
- 2004 74.5% headlamp aim projected beam image…
- 2005 70.9% headlamp aim projected beam image…
- 2006 74.1% headlamp aim projected beam image…
- 2007 75.6% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2008 76.7% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2009 76.7% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2010 78.0% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2011 79.4% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2012 81.9% service brake performance…
- 2013 82.6% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2014 85.5% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2015 85.0% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2016 85.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2017 87.6%registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2018 89.8% wipers does not clear the…
- 2019 91.5% wipers does not clear the…
- 2020 91.2% tread depth below requirements of…
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 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo 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 2017 cars with a similar record
- Land Rover Range Rover 87.6%
- Mercedes-Benz Slc 87.6%
- Jaguar Xe 87.5%
- Volkswagen Touran 87.5%
- Volkswagen Sharan 87.5%
- Jaguar F-Pace 87.7%
Closest pass rates among 2017 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 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo 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 13,989 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 | 5,018 | 35.70% | 19.76% | +15.94 |
| Brakes | 3,194 | 22.70% | 20.89% | +1.81 |
| Visibility | 1,386 | 9.90% | 4.97% | +4.93 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 1,311 | 9.30% | 12.21% | −2.91 |
| Suspension | 949 | 6.70% | 20.98% | −14.28 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 755 | 5.40% | 5.52% | −0.12 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 492 | 3.50% | 1.76% | +1.74 |
| Non-component advisories | 472 | 3.40% | 4.18% | −0.78 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 302 | 2.10% | 5.57% | −3.47 |
| Road Wheels | 110 | 0.80% | 0.75% | +0.05 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 1.9% | £5–20 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.9% | £80–200 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 1.9% | £8–22 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 1.3% | £8–22 |
| Catalyst emissions Lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 1.2% | £60–250 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 1.2% | £18–45 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 1.1% | £45–95 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 0.97% | £3–12 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 0.93% | £3–12 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Rectified | 0.90% | £8–22 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 12.9% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 11.1% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 7.2% | £45–110 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 6.0% | £18–45 |
| Brake discs significantly and obviously worn Brakes | Advisory | 3.0% | £45–110 |
| Registration plates inscription illegible Identification of the vehicle | Advisory | 2.6% | £20–80 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 7,523 | 91.0% | 19,418 mi |
| 30-60k | 6,811 | 85.8% | 41,800 mi |
| 60-90k | 1,273 | 79.3% | 70,592 mi |
| 90-120k | 206 | 73.3% | 100,517 mi |
| 120k+ | 22 | 86.4% | 130,199 mi |
Source: 15,839 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.
2017 Fortwo MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo?
87.6% of the 15,839 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 86.0% for cars first used in 2017. First-attempt pass rate: 86.1%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo?
The three most recorded items are registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (1.95%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (1.94%), wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively (1.92%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 91.0% of the time, falling to 86.4% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo in this dataset had covered 31,139 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo?
Petrol: 87.5% pass rate across 15,528 tests. Electric: 90.4% pass rate across 311 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2017 Smart Mcc Fortwo MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 87.5% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 87.7%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.