Lapses in MOT test standards

Has your car passed its MOT test when it should have failed? Our research shows that the testers don’t always get it right

- Claire Evans

THOUSANDS OF POTENTIALLY dangerous vehicles that should have failed the MOT test were allowed back on the road last year because some garages failed to uphold government testing standards, What Car? the investigation has revealed.

We made a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain a copy of the 2019-2020 MOT Compliance Survey compiled by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) – the latest one available.

For the survey, a team of DVSA expert vehicle examiners retested a randomly selected sample of 1671 vehicles that had already been examined at test stations across the country. The aim of the annual study is to understand whether correct testing standards are being applied by the industry.

It showed that nearly one in seven vehicles (13.58%) that passed the test should have failed, with examiners missing potentially dangerous defects in some cases. Extrapolated across the UK’s car fleet, that percentage equates to more than 2.9 million vehicles that should have been fixed and retested before being allowed back on the road.

The DVSA disagreed with the test outcomes in 16.8% of cases, with 3.2% of failures deemed worthy of a pass certificate. In 70.1% of cases, the DVSA found at least one defect that the MOT test station had missed or incorrectly recorded. It also disagreed with three or more defects identified in 56.5% of vehicles.