Pass rate
85.4%
Above average — 5.3 pts behind the 90.7% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 9,445 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£53
2020 Vauxhall Corsa E MOT pass rate
- 2020
- typical 23,396 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Tyres
44.0% 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 →
Which year to buy
- Best 2021 86.3% pass
- Avoid 2020 85.4% pass · this year
Across the 3 years on record, a spread of 0.9 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 83.0%
- Typical mileage
- 23k mi
The 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E MOT pass rate is 85.4% of its MOT tests — 5.3 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 44.0% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 2.2× the national share
Tyres make up 44.0% of everything recorded on the 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E, against 19.8% nationally — 24.2 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.
- Falls short of its own age and mileage. Like-for-like, cars this age and mileage expect about 90.7%; this one manages 85.4% — 5.3 points below. Age is a fair excuse; this is not age.
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 Vauxhall Corsa E? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 90.7%, so this figure is 5.3 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 83.0%. The median 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E in this dataset had covered 23,396 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 85.6% of the time, April–September 85.2%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively", noted on 4.00% of tests.
- 9,445 recorded tests behind this page.
- 85.4% overall pass rate, 83.0% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Vauxhall Corsa E, the average is 85.9% — best year 2021 (86.3%), worst 2020 (85.4%).
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
- 9,445
- Typical mileage (median)
- 23,396 mi
- Make and model
- Vauxhall Corsa E
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Wiper Blade
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Corsa E MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 42% so small gaps stay visible.
Where the Vauxhall Corsa E is most common
Across all Corsa E model years on record (2020–2022): 15,360 Vauxhall Corsa E cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 24,357 tests. Northampton (NN) has the most, with 518 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 | Northampton (NN) | 518 | 81.9% |
| 2 | Doncaster (DN) | 362 | 86.2% |
| 3 | Glasgow (G) | 359 | 81.6% |
| 4 | Sheffield (S) | 357 | 87.6% |
| 5 | Derby (DE) | 333 | 87.1% |
| 6 | Edinburgh (EH) | 326 | 81.9% |
| 7 | Birmingham (B) | 314 | 84.8% |
| 8 | Peterborough (PE) | 305 | 83.6% |
| 9 | Bristol (BS) | 286 | 84.7% |
| 10 | Nottingham (NG) | 281 | 87.9% |
| 11 | Milton Keynes (MK) | 280 | 83.2% |
| 12 | Reading (RG) | 276 | 87.3% |
| 13 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 275 | 88.4% |
| 14 | Coventry (CV) | 272 | 88.1% |
| 15 | Leicester (LE) | 265 | 89.0% |
| 16 | London (SE) | 253 | 92.1% |
| 17 | Oxford (OX) | 247 | 82.8% |
| 18 | Guildford (GU) | 245 | 86.4% |
| 19 | Southampton (SO) | 214 | 85.4% |
| 20 | Ashford (TN) | 202 | 84.2% |
The twenty areas with the most Vauxhall Corsa E 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 Corsa E
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 1,936 | 84.3% |
| Scotland | 1,327 | 83.1% |
| East of England | 1,006 | 87.6% |
| South West | 935 | 84.9% |
| West Midlands | 879 | 86.2% |
| East Midlands | 864 | 85.6% |
| Yorkshire | 820 | 87.3% |
| North West | 794 | 84.0% |
| London | 341 | 85.9% |
| North East | 298 | 87.9% |
| Wales | 245 | 88.6% |
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 2020 Corsa E
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 2020 Corsa E
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 wipers and washers 4.0% 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 3.2% of tests
“linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt”
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 lights 1.3% of tests
“headlamp aim too high”
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.
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 2020 Corsa E through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £22–£53 — and 42% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £22–£53
- Cheapest common item: wipers does not clear the windscreen…
- £8–£22
- Dearest common item: windscreen damaged
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 80%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 42%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 9,445 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 Corsa E, side by side
3 model years on record, from 2020 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 85.4% to 86.3% — a spread of 0.9 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2020 85.4%wipers does not clear the…
- 2021 86.3% wipers does not clear the…
- 2022 86.2% wipers does not clear 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 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E 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 2020 cars with a similar record
- Isuzu D-Max 85.4%
- Ford Ranger 85.6%
- Peugeot 508 86.0%
- Tesla Model X 84.6%
- Nissan Navara 86.3%
- Tesla Model 3 86.8%
Closest pass rates among 2020 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 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E 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 7,653 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 | 3,377 | 44.00% | 19.76% | +24.24 |
| Brakes | 1,339 | 17.50% | 20.89% | −3.39 |
| Suspension | 996 | 13.00% | 20.98% | −7.98 |
| Visibility | 928 | 12.10% | 4.97% | +7.13 |
| Non-component advisories | 415 | 5.40% | 4.18% | +1.22 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 312 | 4.10% | 12.21% | −8.11 |
| Road Wheels | 183 | 2.40% | 0.75% | +1.65 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 54 | 0.70% | 1.76% | −1.06 |
| Steering | 32 | 0.40% | 2.57% | −2.17 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 17 | 0.20% | 0.82% | −0.62 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 4.0% | £8–22 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 3.2% | £18–45 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 2.2% | £8–22 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 2.1% | £45–95 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Rectified | 1.6% | £8–22 |
| Ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 1.5% | £18–45 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 1.3% | £30–80 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 0.94% | £45–95 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 0.84% | £18–45 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 0.82% | £80–200 |
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 | 14.1% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 8.6% | £45–110 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Advisory | 5.8% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 4.6% | £45–95 |
| Has a bulge, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 3.0% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth tread pattern not visible over the whole tread area when minimum depth required is 1.0mm Tyres | Advisory | 2.2% | £45–95 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 6,344 | 88.2% | 17,734 mi |
| 30-60k | 2,802 | 79.8% | 40,138 mi |
| 60-90k | 273 | 78.0% | 69,279 mi |
| 90-120k | 21 | 71.4% | 95,772 mi |
| 120k+ | 2 | 50.0% | 236,695 mi |
Source: 9,445 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.
2020 Corsa E MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E?
85.4% of the 9,445 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 90.7% for cars first used in 2020. First-attempt pass rate: 83.0%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E?
The three most recorded items are wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively (4.00%), linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt (3.16%), wipers blade defective (2.21%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 88.2% of the time, falling to 50.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E in this dataset had covered 23,396 mi.
Does the season affect the 2020 Vauxhall Corsa E MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 85.6% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 85.2%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.