What’s your reg?
Type the number plate. We’ll pull the car’s official MOT record, then you light up a virtual dashboard to match yours — and get a straight answer on what to do next.
Lookups are not stored by OBDCode. A successful check, or a Repair Brief you create, stays on this device until you delete it from My car.
Something wrong with your car? Start here.
Look up the fault code, or tell us what the car is doing. Free, built from official DVSA data — including what the job should cost in the UK, and what to ask your garage before you agree to the work.
A fault code such as P0300, or a word such as brake, to find a guide or MOT advisory. A code identifies a system or circuit; it does not confirm the failed part.
A code alone cannot confirm that a vehicle is safe to drive; symptoms take priority.
What does an MOT advisory actually predict?
Prognosis registry →An advisory records something a tester saw on the day; it is not a forecast. So we follow the same physical car from its 2024 test to its 2025 test using the DVSA extracts’ stable vehicle id, and publish what actually happened next. A rate is only published where the cohort has at least 500 cars.
Paste a sheet, or open a ranked table.
Which registration years should you inspect most closely?
Older cars fail more often, so a raw pass rate cannot fairly rank one registration year against another. Each model-year cohort is compared with every UK vehicle registered in the same year and tested in the same calendar year, where an index of 100 equals that same-age baseline. Low years are years to inspect, not proof of a defect.
No fault code — can you still find out what is wrong?
All symptom guides →You do not need a code reader to get a straight answer. Every guide below leads with whether the car is safe to drive, then what you can check yourself, what it should cost and what to tell the garage.
How much should this repair cost, and how do you avoid overpaying?
All cost & garage guides →A fault code names a system or a circuit — it does not name the part that failed. That gap is where drivers get ripped off: paying to replace a part nobody tested. Here is what the work should cost in the UK, and what to ask before you agree to it.
How do you check a vehicle’s MOT history for free?
Browse MOT data by make & model →Enter the registration and the record comes live from the DVSA MOT History API, the same official source as the GOV.UK checker. You get every recorded failure, advisory and mileage reading for that one vehicle. The registration is not stored, logged or shared. Aggregate pass rates by make and model are a separate thing entirely.
Use the registration lookup at the top of this page. The registration is not placed in a URL or temporary browser storage.
Registration lookup is not running on this site right now. We do not collect a registration number or substitute sample, estimated or invented vehicle results.
Engine light on — what does the fault code tell you?
All fault codes →A fault code names the system or circuit that failed a monitor, not the part that broke. P0420, for example, reports catalyst efficiency below threshold; it does not prove the converter itself failed. Read the code, keep the evidence, then find out which checks separate the likely causes before anyone quotes you for a part.
Which UK models have the best and worst MOT pass rates?
All makes & models →These are first-test pass rates computed from the 2025 DVSA extract of 33,082,397 Class 4 initial tests. Ford Fiesta sits at 71.7% over 1,279,795 tests, Audi A3 at 78.5%. A model needs at least 1,500 tests in the year to get a page, so small samples cannot produce a misleading figure.
Scroll horizontally to compare every model column.
| Model | Tests | Pass rate | Pass-rate bar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Fiesta | 1,279,795 | 71.7% | 71.7% visual scale |
| Ford Focus | 850,793 | 74.3% | 74.3% visual scale |
| Volkswagen Golf | 782,869 | 77.8% | 77.8% visual scale |
| Vauxhall Corsa | 760,175 | 68.8% | 68.8% visual scale |
| Volkswagen Polo | 577,151 | 71.4% | 71.4% visual scale |
| Vauxhall Astra | 571,373 | 72.1% | 72.1% visual scale |
| Nissan Qashqai | 537,795 | 71.4% | 71.4% visual scale |
| Toyota Yaris | 406,942 | 77.8% | 77.8% visual scale |
| Audi A3 | 369,274 | 78.5% | 78.5% visual scale |
| BMW 3 Series | 346,191 | 77.7% | 77.7% visual scale |
What do UK cars fail their MOT on most often?
Advisories explained →Suspension is the biggest single group, with 4,606,007 defects recorded across 2025, followed by lamps and electrical equipment at 4,121,968 and brakes at 3,595,998. These are defect counts from the DVSA failure-item files, joined to the official inspection-manual lookup tables, so each group matches a real certificate line.
Where should you start if you are not sure what is wrong?
All guides →Start from what the car is doing, not from a part you suspect. Every guide opens with whether the vehicle is safe to drive, then the checks you can make without dismantling anything, then what the job should cost in the UK and what to ask the garage before you agree to the work.
Where do these numbers come from?
Every figure on this page is computed from published DVSA open data, not from our own sample. Headline make and model tables use the 2025 extract of anonymised MOT tests and results; the advisory counts come from the matching failure-item files joined to the official inspection-manual lookup tables. You can download the same extracts and check any figure yourself.
Statistics computed from the 2025 DVSA extract · page last reviewed · OBDCode UK editorial
- DVSA — anonymised MOT tests and results (2025 extracts)
- Open Government Licence v3.0, the licence those extracts are published under
- GOV.UK — check MOT history, the official service behind the registration lookup