What MOTCost is for
MOTCost is a UK car-buyer's guide. Pick a make and model, see how it performs at the MOT — pass rate, the failures testers flag most often, the typical mileage at test, the fuel mix. Three things any sensible used-car shopper or current owner needs before the next test rolls round.
What you get:
- A ranked failure list for each UK make-model.
- A reverse index — every common defect, sorted by the cars it grounds.
- Fleet context: average mileage at test, pass-rate bands, fuel-type splits.
- Cost orientation, leaderboards, and a free MOT cost estimator.
How we pay the bills
MOTCost is free because of affiliate revenue. Some outbound links — for a tool, a part, a garage booking — earn a small commission if you buy. The price is the same for you either way. Affiliate links are flagged in context so you always know where you stand.
What affiliates don't do: decide what the figures say, change the ranking order, or appear in positions they haven't earned editorially. Pass-rate data comes from the published UK MOT record. Failure rankings are sorted by frequency. If a car has a weak record, that's what the page says, regardless of who sells parts for it.
Editorial standards
Pass rates here are first-time pass only — no rectified-at-station reclassifications. Average mileage is bounded between 1 and 500,000 miles to filter obvious data errors. We exclude Advisory items from the failure lists, because a note about a worn wheel bearing isn't the same as the car being rejected, and conflating the two makes the rankings useless.
Cost ranges quoted across the site reflect typical UK garage rates. Where insurance or warranty language gets close to FCA territory, it's reviewed before publication.
Who runs MOTCost
Jacob Cartwright — founder, editor. Builds and operates a portfolio of UK consumer-research sites under SaaSquatch Ltd (London). Background in software engineering and applied data; twelve years of buying, owning, and inheriting British used cars across most price tiers, including the lessons that come from getting it wrong.
Owais Cartwright — mechanical reviewer. City & Guilds Level 3 Light Vehicle Maintenance & Repair, working in UK independent garages. Reviews the diagnostic, prep, and pricing guides for technical accuracy and challenges any claim that doesn't match what an MOT bay actually tests for.
So we built the tool we wish we'd had walking onto every forecourt and every meet-up. The honest record. The model's known weak spots. The fix-cost reality. The data nobody on the seller's side wants you to read.
Spotted something wrong? Email [email protected] — corrections published quickly, attribution given when asked.