Pass rate
Around average — 2.4 pts ahead of the 80.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 45,081 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £26–£82
Pass rate
Around average — 2.4 pts ahead of the 80.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 45,081 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £26–£82
Most common fault
Suspension
25.8% 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 →
5.5 pts up across model years — 4.0% in 2003, 9.5% in 2015.
Which year to buy
Across the 13 years on record, a spread of 16.7 points. See every year →
The 2014 Suzuki Alto MOT pass rate is 82.6% of its MOT tests — 2.4 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 25.8% of what testers record.
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Suzuki Alto does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
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 Suzuki Alto? Get an email when these numbers change .
Cars of this age and mileage average 80.2%, so this figure is 2.4 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 79.3%. The median 2014 Suzuki Alto in this dataset had covered 49,213 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 82.6% of the time, April–September 82.7%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated", noted on 5.85% 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.
Body Panel Repair
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 65% so small gaps stay visible.
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 6,868 | 84.2% |
| North West | 6,385 | 82.6% |
| Yorkshire | 5,316 | 82.6% |
| Scotland | 4,936 | 76.8% |
| South West | 4,316 | 81.7% |
| Wales | 3,951 | 82.7% |
| West Midlands | 3,799 | 84.9% |
| East of England | 3,580 | 86.1% |
| North East | 2,666 | 80.3% |
| East Midlands | 2,232 | 84.2% |
| London | 1,032 | 85.9% |
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 4.0% 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 wipers and washers 2.2% 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.
Check the suspension joints 1.9% of tests
“pins and bushes pin or bush 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.
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 £26–£82 — and 60% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 45,081 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 →
13 model years on record, from 2001 to 2015. Across them the pass rate runs from 66.4% to 83.1% — a spread of 16.7 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 2014 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 76,117 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 | 19,776 | 25.80% | 20.98% | +4.82 |
| Tyres | 15,969 | 20.80% | 19.76% | +1.04 |
| Brakes | 15,232 | 19.80% | 20.89% | −1.09 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 10,648 | 13.90% | 12.21% | +1.69 |
| Visibility | 4,700 | 6.10% | 4.97% | +1.13 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 4,451 | 5.80% | 5.57% | +0.23 |
| Non-component advisories | 2,002 | 2.60% | 4.18% | −1.58 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 1,864 | 2.40% | 5.52% | −3.12 |
| Road Wheels | 774 | 1.00% | 0.75% | +0.25 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 701 | 0.90% | 1.76% | −0.86 |
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure | Minor | 5.8% | £80–250 |
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 4.0% | £5–20 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 3.4% | £3–12 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 3.0% | £3–12 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 2.2% | £8–22 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 2.2% | £8–22 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.9% | £5–25 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 1.9% | £40–150 |
| Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 1.8% | £18–45 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 1.5% | £45–95 |
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 | 17.5% | £45–95 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 16.9% | £40–150 |
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Advisory | 10.6% | £80–180 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 10.1% | £45–95 |
| 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 | 5.6% | £45–110 |
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 9,258 | 89.3% | 20,713 mi |
| 30-60k | 20,163 | 83.5% | 44,846 mi |
| 60-90k | 11,766 | 78.3% | 72,553 mi |
| 90-120k | 3,152 | 76.2% | 101,154 mi |
| 120k+ | 718 | 73.5% | 138,456 mi |
Source: 45,081 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.
82.6% of the 45,081 2014 Suzuki Alto tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 80.2% for cars first used in 2014. First-attempt pass rate: 79.3%.
The three most recorded items are joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated (5.85%), registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (3.95%), stop lamp not working (3.42%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 89.3% of the time, falling to 73.5% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2014 Suzuki Alto in this dataset had covered 49,213 mi.
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 82.6% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 82.7%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.