The 5 brands whose new cars are aging worst

What We Measured

The comparison uses brand-level pass rates from the public UK MOT record. The filter is deliberately narrow: under-five-year-old vehicles only, grouped into two age cohorts.

The first cohort is the newest tested group, labelled here as 2021+. These are cars just entering MOT age or still close to it. The second is 2018-2020: still modern, still current enough to be common on franchised dealer forecourts, but old enough for weak tyres, suspension wear, brake wear, lamp faults and early durability problems to show up.

Then we ranked brands by the decline between those two pass rates.

The ranking compares weighted brand pass rates for under-five-year-old vehicles only. Very small brands were excluded, because a few hundred tests can make a chart look dramatic without saying much about the national fleet. The result is a brand-level ageing signal, not a claim that every model from that maker is equally weak.

There are three reasons this matters.

First, buyers often pay a premium for “nearly new” because they assume most of the risk has been taken out. That is only partly true. A three- or four-year-old car may still look modern, but it is exactly when the MOT starts catching neglected tyres, worn brake components, suspension play, broken lamps, washer faults and warning lights.

Second, manufacturers increasingly sell cars on technology, design language and finance cost. Fine. But if a brand’s early-life pass rate drops harder than rivals, the public should know.

Third, fleet age matters. A brand with lots of hard-used commercial vehicles should not be judged the same way as a brand selling mostly private superminis. That is why this cut looks only at young cars and compares brands inside the same early-life window.

1. MG: The Bargain Has A Tail

MG tops the list, and that should make the company uncomfortable.

The appeal is obvious. MG has sold value hard: electric cars that undercut mainstream rivals, family crossovers with long warranty cover, and finance offers that make older brands look expensive. Plenty of buyers looked at the monthly payment and decided the old badge had been reborn as a rational choice.

The MOT record adds a colder reading. In the under-five-year cut, MG shows the steepest pass-rate decline: down 12.5 percentage points from the newest cohort to the 2018-2020 cohort.

That does not mean every MG is bad. It does mean the brand’s early used cars are losing MOT strength faster than the rivals in this ranking. That is the bit buyers should care about.

The likely pressure points are not mysterious. Heavier electric models are hard on tyres. Budget-led cars can be more sensitive to cheap replacement parts, missed servicing and low owner tolerance for preventative maintenance. A long warranty also does not stop a car failing an MOT on tyres, lamps, wipers or wear items.

MG’s problem is bigger than any one defect category. The brand has built its modern UK pitch around affordability. If that affordability is followed by a sharper early-life MOT slide, buyers are entitled to ask whether the saving was paid up front and collected later.

A cheap new car is not cheap if it starts behaving like an old one before the finance agreement has gone cold.

2. Land Rover: Premium Price, Ordinary Excuses

Land Rover appearing here will shock nobody who has spent time reading used-car histories, but it still matters.

The brand sells toughness, status and capability. It also sells complexity. Air suspension, large wheels, heavy bodies, high-output drivetrains, electronic systems and four-wheel-drive hardware all make sense in the brochure. The MOT bay sees the other side of that equation.

In this under-five-year cut, Land Rover drops 11.3 percentage points between the newest cohort and the 2018-2020 cohort.

That is a sharp fall for cars that are still young. It is also hard to excuse with the usual “old cars fail” defence. These are not tired Discoverys from three ownership cycles ago. They are modern cars still close enough to new-car age that many buyers would expect them to feel protected by brand prestige.

The failures that hurt young premium SUVs often start with boring things: tyres, brakes, suspension joints, bushes, lamps and warning indicators. Large wheels and heavy kerb weights make tyre wear more expensive. Complex suspension systems give more things the tester can find. Owners who bought into the image may not be ready for the maintenance bill.

Land Rover’s cultural problem is that its image is stronger than its early used evidence. The cars are desirable, but desirability is not reliability. A buyer looking at a three- or four-year-old Evoque, Discovery Sport or Range Rover family model should treat a clean MOT history as evidence, not decoration.

3. Peugeot: Style Is Not A Pass Certificate

Peugeot has had a good design run. The cabins are distinctive, the exterior styling is sharper than much of the mainstream class, and the brand has done a decent job making ordinary cars feel less dreary. None of that changes what the MOT record shows.

In the under-five-year ranking, Peugeot records a 10.5-point decline between the newest tested cohort and the 2018-2020 cohort.

That is not a disaster in isolation, but it is a warning sign because Peugeot is a mass-market brand. Its cars are everywhere: 208s, 2008s, 3008s, 308s and partner-platform family cars. A pass-rate slide at brand level means a lot of real households are exposed to the result.

The uncomfortable bit is that many Peugeot buyers are not chasing drama. They are buying a sensible small car or crossover. They expect reasonable running costs, usable space and a car that does not create admin. When those cars start failing more often in early used life, the brand cannot hide behind “enthusiast use” or performance-car excuses.

For buyers, the practical response is simple. Treat modern Peugeots as inspection cars, not assumption cars. Look hard at tyres, lamps, brake wear, emissions warnings and previous advisory patterns. A clean design does not cancel a messy history.

4. Citroen: Comfort Needs Better Durability

Citroen’s modern identity is comfort, affordability and slightly odd design. That is not a bad thing. The market needs cars that are not all trying to be pseudo-sporty crossovers with hard rides and angry headlights.

But comfort is not enough.

Citroen falls 10.0 percentage points between the newest and 2018-2020 under-five cohorts in this ranking. That puts it firmly in the group of brands whose early used cars lose MOT strength faster than buyers should like.

Some of this may be usage. Citroens often live hard lives as family cars, small vans, taxis, mobility vehicles and city runabouts. Short trips, kerb strikes, school-run mileage and light neglect all show up in MOT results. But brand accountability does not disappear because the cars are used as intended.

If a manufacturer sells affordable, practical cars, those cars need to tolerate affordable, practical use. They should not require owner behaviour that belongs in a classic-car club.

The weak spots to watch are familiar: tyre condition, suspension wear, brake condition, lighting and screenwash or wiper issues. None of those sound glamorous, which is the point. Early-life reliability is often lost in cheap, ordinary details.

5. Jeep: The Image Writes Cheques The MOT Checks

Jeep is the smallest-volume brand in this top five, but it still clears the sample threshold and the result is poor enough to name.

The under-five-year pass-rate decline is 9.5 percentage points.

Jeep’s UK range has long had a strange mismatch between image and use. The badge says rugged. Many examples spend their lives as suburban crossovers. That should make MOT performance easier, not harder. If a car is sold with outdoorsy theatre but mostly does school runs and retail-park trips, it should not be struggling to hold its early-life pass rate.

The likely pattern is a mix of tyre wear, suspension wear, brake issues and owner expectations. Jeep buyers may accept fuel bills and chunky styling, but that does not mean they signed up for a sharper early MOT slide than mainstream alternatives.

This is where brand myth becomes expensive. “Rugged” is not a mechanical category. The public record only sees whether the car meets the test standard.

The Table That Should Bother Product Teams

Here is the ranking from this cut:

These are not end-of-life cars. That is what makes the ranking sharp.

A five-year-old car should have wear. It should not be treated as fresh. But the steepest declines point to brands where early ownership may be carrying more friction than the sales pitch admits.

What This Does Not Prove

This is not a full reliability study. The MOT does not capture every breakdown. It does not know whether a car stranded its owner, needed a warranty repair, had infotainment failures, suffered battery issues, or spent weeks waiting for parts.

It also does not price the repair. A fail on a tyre is not the same as a fail involving suspension structure. A warning light can be cheap or painful. A worn brake pad is different from a pattern of repeat suspension advisories.

The MOT record is still valuable because it is consistent, national and grounded in a legal test. It cuts through owner forums, dealer scripts and brand folklore.

The right reading is this: a steep under-five pass-rate decline is an early-life durability signal. It should push buyers to inspect more carefully, negotiate harder and take a recent clean MOT more seriously.

What Buyers Should Do With This

If you are buying one of these brands at three to five years old, do not panic. Do get stricter.

Read the MOT history before you view the car. Look for repeated advisories, not just outright failures. A car that keeps showing tyre wear, suspension play or brake imbalance is telling you how it has lived.

Check whether advisories were fixed or just carried forward. A seller saying “it passed” is not enough. A pass with a row of advisories can be a deferred invoice.

Look at tyre brands and matching. A heavy EV or SUV on mismatched budget tyres is a clue. It may pass today and cost you tomorrow.

Inspect lamps, wipers, washers, brakes and suspension before falling for the cabin. These are the boring items that turn a nearly new car into a negotiation problem.