DETAILED MoT data has revealed that Exeter is among the bottom ten places for MoT passes with a 53 per cent pass rate.
The most common reasons for failure were lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment (23.6 per cent of failures), followed by suspension (17.5 per cent of failures) and brakes (14.4 per cent of failures).
The Devonshire city found itself fourth from bottom of the list, its clean air clearly not enough alone to keep its cars healthy.
The latest analysis of 24.5 million MoT records by consumer motoring website HonestJohn.co.uk maps the top and bottom ten regions for cars passing their MoTs.
London and the South East have the highest pass rates, while six out of the bottom ten regions are located in the North of England and Scotland.
While Dundee was bottom of the table, Romford came in first as the most likely place in Britain to pass your MoT.
HonestJohn.co.uk is publishing this data as The MoT Files at honestjohn.co.uk/mot – offering consumers the chance to spot cars’ common failures by make, model, year of registration and postcode based on empirical data.
The research involved examining tens of millions of records obtained from the Vehicle Operator and Services Agency (VOSA) through the Government’s OpenData scheme.
Romford tops the table for MoT passes. The Havering based town beat the rest of the UK with a 71 per cent pass rate. English heritage car manufacturers Bentley (7.1 per cent failure rate) and Triumph (11.4 per cent failure rate) topped the list of cars in this region that were most likely pass their MoT.
Enfield came in a respectable second with a 70 per cent MoT pass rate. Another northeast London town at the top of the table shows that motorists in the Greater London area are some of the most prepared in Britain for their MoTs and therefore most able to keep control over the cost of their motoring.
Bromley takes third place with a 69 per cent MoT pass rate in a study which reveals the top three most likely postcodes in the UK to pass your MoT are within the Greater London area. The best performer, Porsche (16.1 per cent failure rate), was followed by Lexus (21 per cent failure rate) and Subaru (21.2 per cent failure rate). The top three cars were collectively 20 per cent more likely to pass their MoT in Bromley compared to the rest of the UK showing that Bromley motorists really know how to look after their cars.
Slough comes in at fourth place. The talk of sport and makes of cars in Sir John Betjeman’s famous poem about the southern region has clearly made for a motoring-literate town. The motor trade has long been represented in Slough and with a 69 per cent pass rate, its motorists are plainly benefiting from its rich history in the car trade.
The Worst 1)
Dundee Broken down by region, the detailed data reveals that the worst performing cars were those in Dundee, with only 49 per cent of cars registered in 2010 passing their MoT. The MoT data for Dundee postcodes shows that in this region brakes alone are twice as likely to fail as the national average. In Dundee, every major MoT test area that was examined performed worse than the national average.
2) Kirkcaldy Scotland’s woes don't end with Dundee, Kirkcaldy had a lowly 50 per cent MoT pass rate. Nicknamed the “Lang Toun” for its long main street, there is clearly a strain being placed on its motors. As the second lowest postcode in the table, cars in Kirkcaldy are most likely to fail their MoT due to suspension (23.1 per cent of failures). Scotland’s long winter nights are not doing Kirkcaldy’s motorists any favours either with 22.8 per cent of all failures due to lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment.
3) Plymouth Only slightly better, Plymouth came in third from bottom with a 52 per cent pass rate. With one of the lowest MoT pass rates in the country, Plymouth’s worst offending manufacturer was Daewoo (66.1 per cent failure rate) while the most likely cause of MoT failure was lighting - the reason behind 24.2 per cent of all MoT failures in Britain’s Ocean City. 4) Exeter Nearby Exeter didn’t fare much better with a 53 per cent pass rate. The most common reasons for failure were lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment (23.6 per cent of failures), followed by suspension (17.5 per cent of failures) and brakes (14.4 per cent of failures). The Devonshire city found itself fourth from bottom of the list, its clean air clearly not enough alone to keep its cars healthy.
Overall, more than half of the total 24.5 million cars in the research (53 per cent) failed on lighting, with headlamp aim being the most common fail point (17 per cent). Suspension was the second most common fail criteria, followed by brakes (21 per cent), driver’s view of the road (20 per cent) and tyre tread depth (14 per cent).
Daniel Harrison, editor of HonestJohn.co.uk, commented: “We’ve found that 20 per cent of all cars still fail their first MoT but consumers don’t necessarily realise that their choice of manufacturer and model is an all-important factor in determining whether they pass or fail. As our research shows, some manufacturers have the lowest first time MoT pass rates but they are still the biggest selling, most popular brands. We want consumers to be aware and informed about their car purchases and hope that our data, which pinpoints the main reasons for failure across different brands and model, will help motorists save time and money.”