Pass rate
88.9%
Above average — 2.9 pts ahead of the 86.0% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 54 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £46–£124
2017 Toyota Starlet MOT pass rate
- 2017
- typical 57,101 mi
Only 54 tests of this exact model and year are in the DVSA data, below the 100 we ask for before a page goes in the index. The figures are still shown, because they are the only ones there are.
Most common fault
Brakes
28.3% of faults · 20.9% nationally
mostly worn pads and discs, corroded pipes and a handbrake that will not hold.
Part only £25–£40 for Brake pads under 1.5 mm. What fitting it takes →
Which year to buy
- Best 2017 88.9% pass · this year
- Avoid 2010 79.2% pass
Across the 7 years on record, a spread of 9.7 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 87.8%
- Typical mileage
- 57k mi
The 2017 Toyota Starlet MOT pass rate is 88.9% of its MOT tests — 2.9 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Brakes is the biggest single reason it fails, at 28.3% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Toyota Starlet does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Brakes: 1.4× the national share
Brakes make up 28.3% of everything recorded on the 2017 Toyota Starlet, against 20.9% nationally — 7.4 points above. Have the discs and pads measured rather than glanced at, and ask whether the handbrake holds on a slope.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 0% 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.
- Based on a small sample. 54 tests back this page. That is enough to publish and to index, not enough to treat the decimal places as precise — read the pattern, not the second digit.
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 Starlet? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2017 Toyota Starlet compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 86.0%, so this figure is 2.9 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 87.8%. The median 2017 Toyota Starlet in this dataset had covered 57,101 mi.
The single most recorded failure item is "Service brake imbalance across an axle", noted on 3.70% of tests.
- 54 recorded tests behind this page.
- 88.9% overall pass rate, 87.8% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Toyota Starlet, the average is 84.2% — best year 2017 (88.9%), worst 2010 (79.2%).
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
- 54
- Typical mileage (median)
- 57,101 mi
- Make and model
- Toyota Starlet
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Brake Discs and Pads Set
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Starlet MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 73% so small gaps stay visible.
What fails a 2017 Starlet
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 Starlet
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 wheel bearings 3.7% of tests
“wheel bearings rough when rotated”
Listen for a hum that rises and falls with speed and changes when you load one side in a bend. A noisy bearing is an easy pre-test diagnosis and an awkward surprise at the test station.
-
Check the windscreen 3.7% 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 brakes 1.9% of tests
“brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick”
Look through the spokes of each wheel at the pad — less than 3mm of friction material, or a lip on the disc edge, is the usual failure. Check the handbrake holds on a slope with a few clicks, not at the top of its travel.
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 Starlet through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £46–£124 — and 0% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £46–£124
- Cheapest common item: brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick
- £18–£45
- Dearest common item: emissions not tested unable to be completed
- £60–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 40%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 0%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 54 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 Starlet, side by side
7 model years on record, from 2005 to 2017. Across them the pass rate runs from 79.2% to 88.9% — a spread of 9.7 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2005 84.8% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2006 82.5% service brake imbalance across an…
- 2007 81.8% rbt (sp) efficiency below…
- 2008 86.0% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2009 88.9% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2010 79.2% joints constant velocity boot…
- 2017 88.9%service brake imbalance across an…
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 Toyota Starlet 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
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 Toyota Starlet 10 failure items · 6 advisories · 9 inspection categories · mileage brackets · all of it in the page, none of it above the fold
Every inspection category
Shares of the 53 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brakes | 15 | 28.30% | 20.89% | +7.41 |
| Suspension | 13 | 24.50% | 20.98% | +3.52 |
| Tyres | 11 | 20.80% | 19.76% | +1.04 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 6 | 11.30% | 12.21% | −0.91 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 2 | 3.80% | 5.52% | −1.72 |
| Visibility | 2 | 3.80% | 4.97% | −1.17 |
| Non-component advisories | 2 | 3.80% | 4.18% | −0.38 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 1 | 1.90% | 5.57% | −3.67 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 1 | 1.90% | 1.76% | +0.14 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service brake imbalance across an axle Brakes | Major | 3.7% | £45–110 |
| Service brake performance efficiency below requirements Brakes | Major | 3.7% | £60–150 |
| Wheel bearings rough when rotated Suspension | Major | 3.7% | £20–55 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 3.7% | £80–200 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 1.9% | £18–45 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 1.9% | £25–65 |
| Emissions not tested unable to be completed Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 1.9% | £60–250 |
| Exhaust system has a major leak of exhaust gases Body, chassis, structure | Major | 1.9% | £45–120 |
| Headlamp aim too low Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.9% | £30–80 |
| Parking brake performance inoperative on one side Brakes | Major | 1.9% | £60–150 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 14.8% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 9.3% | £18–45 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 7.4% | £40–150 |
| Wheel bearings has excessive play Suspension | Advisory | 7.4% | £20–55 |
| Headlamp has a product on the lens so that the light output is severely reduced Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Advisory | 5.6% | £5–25 |
| Brake discs significantly and obviously worn Brakes | Advisory | 3.7% | £45–110 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 5 | 100.0% | 19,752 mi |
| 30-60k | 26 | 92.3% | 46,527 mi |
| 60-90k | 6 | 83.3% | 66,816 mi |
| 90-120k | 16 | 81.3% | 105,960 mi |
| 120k+ | 1 | 100.0% | 169,614 mi |
Source: 54 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 Starlet MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2017 Toyota Starlet?
88.9% of the 54 2017 Toyota Starlet tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 86.0% for cars first used in 2017. First-attempt pass rate: 87.8%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2017 Toyota Starlet?
The three most recorded items are service brake imbalance across an axle (3.70%), service brake performance efficiency below requirements (3.70%), wheel bearings rough when rotated (3.70%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2017 Toyota Starlet MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 100.0% of the time, falling to 100.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2017 Toyota Starlet in this dataset had covered 57,101 mi.