Guide · 20 Jul 2026 · 4 min read

The most (and least) MOT-reliable first cars

Which first cars pass their MOT most often? We ranked the 70 cars then in our set by 2023 DVSA failure rate — the best under 10%, the worst over a third.

The MOT is the closest thing you get to an honest second opinion on a used car. Every test is logged, and the government publishes the anonymised results. So instead of guessing which first cars hold together, we took the 2023 DVSA MOT data and lined up the 70 cars then in the Vouched first-car set (the set has since grown) by how often they fail.

Before the tables, four things that keep this honest:

  • These are 2023 DVSA results, and only models with at least 500 recorded tests — enough volume to mean something.
  • MOT rates are fairest compared within the first-MOT window (cars around three years old). Our list mixes near-new cars with ten-year-old ones, and age drives failures — an older model fails more partly because it's old, not just because of how it was built.
  • The pass/fail bar changed with the May 2018 defect rules (new categories, stricter diesel checks), so these numbers aren't comparable to older reliability write-ups.
  • A failure rate is not a running-cost ranking. A car can sail through the MOT and still be dear to service, or fail on cheap consumables. Different question.

With that said — the numbers.

The most MOT-reliable first cars

Lowest first-time failure rates in our set (2023 DVSA):

  1. Ford Puma 1.0 mHEV — 7.2%. Top faults: Tyres, Brakes, Visibility.
  2. Honda Jazz 1.3 — 9.6%. Top faults: Tyres, Brakes, Visibility.
  3. Audi A1 30 TFSI — 9.6%. Top faults: Tyres, Brakes, Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems.
  4. Renault Captur 1.0 TCe — 9.7%. Top faults: Tyres, Suspension, Brakes.
  5. Skoda Kamiq 1.0 TSI — 9.7%. Top faults: Brakes, Tyres, Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment.
  6. Toyota Yaris 1.5 Hybrid — 9.7%. Top faults: Tyres, Visibility, Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment.
  7. Volkswagen T-Cross 1.0 TSI — 10.0%. Top faults: Tyres, Brakes, Visibility.
  8. Toyota Corolla 1.8 Hybrid — 10.9%. Top faults: Tyres, Visibility, Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment.

Notice the pattern: these are mostly newer cars (2015–2024), which is exactly the point of the age caveat above — a three-year-old car should fail less than a decade-old one, so this list rewards recency as much as engineering. If your budget is tighter, the good news is that some cheaper, older models still do well: the Honda Jazz 1.3 above is a genuine bargain, and just behind this group the Hyundai i10 (2020 model) at 11.9% and the Ford Ka+ at 14.9% are affordable and dependable through the test.

And the faults that recur — tyres, brakes, lamps, “visibility” (wipers, washers, screen) — are the cheap, consumable stuff you can check and fix, not engine or structural failures. That's a reassuring signal in itself.

The least MOT-reliable first cars

Highest first-time failure rates in our set:

  1. Renault Clio 0.9 TCe — 41.5%. Top faults: Suspension, Brakes, Tyres.
  2. Peugeot 107 1.0 — 35.7%. Top faults: Brakes, Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment, Suspension.
  3. Ford Ka 1.2 — 33.6%. Top faults: Suspension, Brakes, Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment.
  4. Ford Fiesta 1.25 (Mk7) — 31.7%. Top faults: Suspension, Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment, Tyres.
  5. Vauxhall Viva 1.0 — 28.7%. Top faults: Suspension, Brakes, Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment.

41.5% of tested Renaults in that generation failed first time. But read it fairly: every car on this list is an older model year (2005–2019), so it's being tested well outside the gentle first-MOT window. A big chunk of that failure rate is simply age and mileage catching up. Suspension is the top recorded fault on 4 of the 5, which is classic worn-out-car territory: tired springs, dampers and bushes after a hard life. It doesn't mean these were bad cars new; it means the survivors on the road in 2023 were old.

How to read this before you buy

A high failure rate isn't a veto and a low one isn't a guarantee — it's a prompt. If you're looking at one of the higher-failure models, budget for suspension and brake work and treat a fresh, long MOT as worth paying for. Whatever you shortlist, always view the car's own MOT history on GOV.UK: past advisories tell you what's already tired on that specific example.

You can see this failure rate, plus the top recorded faults, on every car page in the Vouched first-car finder — so you can weigh MOT reliability against price, insurance group and running costs all in one place, instead of trusting a forum thread.

These are estimates drawn from public data, not a warranty or a prediction for any individual car.

Sources

  • MOT failure rates and top faults: DVSA anonymised MOT tests and results, 2023 (Open Government Licence v3), models with at least 500 recorded tests, accessed Jul 2026.
  • Prices and insurance-group context: Vouched first-car dataset, modelled from published price indices and Parkers model pages; estimates, not quotes.

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