Tyre MOT failures
Tyre faults account for 12.6% of MOT failures. What the tester checks, why cars fail, and which models fail this most.
What are tyre MOT failures?
Tyres fail for tread below the 1.6mm legal limit across the central three-quarters, uneven or exposed-cord wear, or sidewall damage. The tester inspects all four; a single illegal tyre is a fail.
How common are tyre MOT failures?
Tyre faults account for 12.6% of all recorded MOT failures, making them the fourth most common reason cars fail. That share is drawn from the categorised defect records of 16,764 car models in the DVSA data.
| Failure area | Share of all failures |
|---|---|
| Tyres | 12.6% |
Which cars fail most on tyre?
These models lose the largest share of their own MOT failures to tyre items. The percentage is the portion of each model's failures that fall in this area, among models with a large test sample.
| Model | Share of its failures | Overall failure rate | Tests |
|---|---|---|---|
| Porsche Taycan | 76.4% | 9.1% | 31,639 |
| BMW I4 | 76.0% | 13.6% | 15,006 |
| Audi Q4 | 73.7% | 11.4% | 28,049 |
| BMW M440i | 73.5% | 10.3% | 7,062 |
| BMW 840i | 72.1% | 12.4% | 13,894 |
| Tesla Model Y | 71.7% | 14.0% | 78,552 |
| Mercedes-Benz Eqc | 71.4% | 14.0% | 36,724 |
| Cupra Born | 71.1% | 9.1% | 9,954 |
| Mercedes-Benz Eqb | 70.5% | 12.8% | 7,078 |
| Tesla Model 3 | 70.2% | 13.9% | 293,536 |
| Audi E-Tron | 69.3% | 9.2% | 59,532 |
| BMW M340i | 68.3% | 10.4% | 17,218 |
| Polestar Polestar | 66.7% | 11.0% | 35,765 |
| Cupra Leon | 66.3% | 13.9% | 5,570 |
| Mercedes-Benz Eqa | 66.1% | 10.0% | 25,730 |
Other MOT failure areas
How the other DVSA failure areas break down, each with the models that fail it most.
Sources: DVSA MOT History API: MOT test results and defect data ยท DVSA MOT testing data for Great Britain