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2007 Toyota Corolla MOT pass rate

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Pass rate

78.6%

Around average — 5.6 pts ahead of the 73.0% that cars this age and mileage manage.

Across 16,965 recorded tests.

Typical repair bill £17–£52

Which year to buy

  • Best 2025 99.5% pass
  • Avoid 2003 73.9% pass

Across the 24 years on record, a spread of 25.6 points. See every year →

First-attempt pass
73.6%
Typical mileage
115k mi

The 2007 Toyota Corolla MOT pass rate is 78.6% of its MOT tests — 5.6 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 23.6% of what testers record.

MOT PASS RATES

The 2007 Toyota Corolla on the real record

78.6% of 2007 Toyota Corolla MOTs passed — 16,965 tests, 2023–2025

Pass rate

The answer from the DVSA's class-4 MOT records.

Expert verdict

Lamps & electrics: 1.5× the national share

Lamps & electrics make up 18.8% of everything recorded on the 2007 Toyota Corolla, against 12.2% nationally — 6.6 points above. Suspension is still the single largest share at 23.6%, 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 Toyota Corolla? Get an email when these numbers change .

How does the 2007 Toyota Corolla compare?

Cars of this age and mileage average 73.0%, so this figure is 5.6 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 73.6%. The median 2007 Toyota Corolla in this dataset had covered 115,049 mi.

64% of the tests on this vehicle ran on Petrol, which passed 79.5% of the time. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 78.8% of the time, April–September 78.3%.

The single most recorded failure item is "Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources", noted on 9.81% of tests.

  • 16,965 recorded tests behind this page.
  • 78.6% overall pass rate, 73.6% on a first attempt.
  • Across every year of the Toyota Corolla, the average is 84.4% — best year 2025 (99.5%), worst 2003 (73.9%).

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
16,965
Typical mileage (median)
115,049 mi
Make and model
Toyota Corolla
Updated
2026-11-07

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 Corolla MOT pass rate?

0-30k 90.2%
30-60k 85.8%
60-90k 81.4%
90-120k 78.5%
120k+ 76.3%

Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 68% so small gaps stay visible.

Fuel type and reliability

Petrol 79.5%
Diesel 76.9%
LPG 91.4%

Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (64% of tests).

Where the Toyota Corolla is most common

Across all Corolla model years on record (2000–2025): 168,023 Toyota Corolla cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 365,996 tests. Birmingham (B) has the most, with 7,594 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 Share of all Tests Pass rate
1 Birmingham (B) 7,594 4.5% 16,305 88.9%
2 Manchester (M) 4,877 2.9% 10,621 85.3%
3 Sheffield (S) 4,458 2.7% 10,279 88.0%
4 Leicester (LE) 4,117 2.5% 9,945 85.4%
5 Nottingham (NG) 3,446 2.1% 7,819 84.5%
6 Bristol (BS) 3,352 2% 8,463 78.9%
7 Derby (DE) 3,137 1.9% 6,079 87.1%
8 Bradford (BD) 3,050 1.8% 6,426 84.5%
9 Peterborough (PE) 2,810 1.7% 5,517 84.9%
10 Bolton (BL) 2,773 1.7% 5,625 85.5%
11 Reading (RG) 2,572 1.5% 5,641 84.4%
12 Leeds (LS) 2,386 1.4% 4,823 84.2%
13 London (NW) 2,377 1.4% 4,861 87.9%
14 London (E) 2,284 1.4% 5,316 88.0%
15 Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) 2,272 1.4% 4,802 86.4%
16 Coventry (CV) 2,260 1.3% 4,587 85.3%
17 Northampton (NN) 2,227 1.3% 4,728 84.1%
18 Ashford (TN) 2,160 1.3% 5,142 82.6%
19 Cardiff (CF) 2,148 1.3% 5,020 83.4%
20 Brighton (BN) 2,130 1.3% 5,509 78.6%

The twenty areas with the most Toyota Corolla 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 Corolla

Region Tests Pass rate
South East 3,927 79.6%
North West 2,350 78.8%
West Midlands 1,959 84.8%
East of England 1,586 78.1%
South West 1,568 72.2%
Yorkshire 1,503 76.9%
London 1,406 85.6%
East Midlands 1,117 79.1%
Scotland 611 66.9%
Wales 522 69.2%
North East 416 74.3%

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 2007 Corolla

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.

Suspension 23.6%
+2.6 pts vs national national 21.0% Price suspension parts
Brakes 21.0%
in line with the national share national 20.9% Price brakes parts
Lamps & electrics 18.8%
+6.6 pts vs national national 12.2% Order bulbs & wipers
Tyres 12.4%
−7.4 pts vs national national 19.8% Compare tyre prices
Show the other 6 fault categories
  • Body & chassis 6.5%
  • Visibility 4.9%
  • Emissions & leaks 4.5%
  • Identification 3.2%
  • Advisories 3.0%
  • Steering 1.1%

Shares are of every item recorded on 2007 Toyota Corolla tests — a composition, so they add to 100% across all sections, not per test.

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 2007 Corolla

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.

  1. Check the lights 9.8% 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.

  2. Check the suspension joints 3.9% 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.

  3. Check the windscreen 3.2% 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 2007 Corolla through its MOT

Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £17–£52 — and 76% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.

Average repair across the 10 common items
£17–£52
Cheapest common item: stop lamp not working
£3–£12
Dearest common item: joints constant velocity boot severely…
£80–£250
Common items a careful owner can do at home
80%
Repairs that still cost under £30
76%

Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 16,965 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 Corolla, side by side

24 model years on record, from 2000 to 2025. Across them the pass rate runs from 73.9% to 99.5% — a spread of 25.6 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.

  1. 2000 76.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
  2. 2001 76.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
  3. 2002 75.8% headlamp lens slightly defective
  4. 2003 73.9% headlamp lens slightly defective
  5. 2004 74.1% headlamp lens slightly defective
  6. 2005 76.6% headlamp lens slightly defective
  7. 2006 78.0% headlamp lens slightly defective
  8. 2007 78.6%
    registration plate lamp(s)…
  9. 2008 79.4% registration plate lamp(s)…
  10. 2009 79.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
  11. 2010 82.1% registration plate lamp(s)…
  12. 2011 82.1% windscreen damaged but not…
  13. 2014 89.5% registration plate lamp(s)…
  14. 2015 87.0% registration plate lamp(s)…
  15. 2016 84.1% position lamp incorrect colour
  16. 2017 92.6% wipers does not clear the…
  17. 2018 90.5% window excessively tinted but not…
  18. 2019 92.9% wipers blade defective
  19. 2020 93.4% wipers blade defective
  20. 2021 93.7% wipers blade defective
  21. 2022 94.5% wipers blade defective
  22. 2023 95.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
  23. 2024 97.7% has a cut in excess of the…
  24. 2025 99.5% has a cut in excess of the…

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 2007 Toyota Corolla 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.

Compare 2007 with another year →

Compare two different cars instead →

Other 2007 cars with a similar record

Closest pass rates among 2007 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 2007 Toyota Corolla 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 50,334 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 12,021 23.60% 20.98% +2.62
Brakes 10,698 21.00% 20.89% +0.11
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 9,558 18.80% 12.21% +6.59
Tyres 6,312 12.40% 19.76% −7.36
Body, chassis, structure 3,294 6.50% 5.57% +0.93
Visibility 2,482 4.90% 4.97% −0.07
Noise, emissions and leaks 2,269 4.50% 5.52% −1.02
Identification of the vehicle 1,640 3.20% 1.76% +1.44
Non-component advisories 1,522 3.00% 4.18% −1.18
Steering 538 1.10% 2.57% −1.47

The exact failure items, in the tester's words

Share of the 16,965 tests on this vehicle that recorded each item
Recorded item Severity Tests Est. cost Part
Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Minor 9.8% £5–20 Number Plate Lamp →
Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Minor 6.0% £5–25 Headlight Bulb →
Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Major 3.9% £5–25 Headlight Bulb →
Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension Minor 3.9% £18–45 Ball Joint →
Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility Minor 3.2% £80–200 Windscreen →
Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Rectified 2.8% £5–25 Headlight Bulb →
Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Major 2.7% £3–12 Stop Light Bulb →
Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure Minor 2.6% £80–250 Body Panel Repair →
Wipers blade defective Visibility Minor 2.6% £8–22 Wiper Blade →
Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment Rectified 2.4% £3–12 Stop Light Bulb →

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.

Items recorded as advisory on this vehicle
Recorded item Severity Tests Est. cost
Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres Advisory 16.3% £45–95
Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes Advisory 14.9% £80–180
Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres Advisory 12.3% £45–95
Coil spring corroded so that its cross sectional area is reduced and seriously weakened Suspension Advisory 11.5% £25–65
Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes Advisory 11.1% £45–110
Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes Advisory 10.4% £18–45

Pass rate by mileage

Mileage Tests Pass rate Median odometer
0-30k 102 90.2% 22,858 mi
30-60k 1,161 85.8% 48,019 mi
60-90k 3,132 81.4% 76,705 mi
90-120k 4,932 78.5% 105,312 mi
120k+ 7,611 76.3% 154,850 mi

Source: 16,965 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.

2007 Corolla MOT questions

What is the MOT pass rate for a 2007 Toyota Corolla?

78.6% of the 16,965 2007 Toyota Corolla tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 73.0% for cars first used in 2007. First-attempt pass rate: 73.6%.

What are the most common MOT failures on a 2007 Toyota Corolla?

The three most recorded items are registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (9.81%), headlamp lens slightly defective (5.98%), position lamp not working (3.94%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.

Does mileage affect the 2007 Toyota Corolla MOT pass rate?

Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 90.2% of the time, falling to 76.3% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2007 Toyota Corolla in this dataset had covered 115,049 mi.

Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2007 Toyota Corolla?

Petrol: 79.5% pass rate across 10,799 tests. Diesel: 76.9% pass rate across 6,131 tests. LPG: 91.4% pass rate across 35 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.

Does the season affect the 2007 Toyota Corolla MOT pass rate?

Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 78.8% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 78.3%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.