Know Your MOT
8.4%fail rate

Visibility and wiper MOT failures

Visibility and wiper faults account for 8.4% of MOT failures. What the tester checks, why cars fail, and which models fail this most.

What are visibility and wiper MOT failures?

Visibility failures include torn or smearing wiper blades, a washer jet that does not reach the screen, and chips or cracks in the driver's swept area. Blades and washer fluid are quick, cheap fixes.

How common are visibility and wiper MOT failures?

Visibility and wiper faults account for 8.4% of all recorded MOT failures, making them the sixth most common reason cars fail. That share is drawn from the categorised defect records of 16,764 car models in the DVSA data.

Failure areaShare of all failures
Visibility/wipers8.4%

Which cars fail most on visibility and wiper?

These models lose the largest share of their own MOT failures to visibility and wiper items. The percentage is the portion of each model's failures that fall in this area, among models with a large test sample.

ModelShare of its failuresOverall failure rateTests
Volkswagen Delivery38.4%34.4%21,234
Hyundai Bayon36.8%12.9%14,261
Volkswagen Karmann35.4%26.8%12,196
Volkswagen Motor32.9%32.3%117,381
Volkswagen Kombi32.4%29.5%5,757
Volkswagen T232.1%31.4%14,674
Volkswagen Type32.0%31.9%20,617
Leyland Daf 40031.8%38.9%23,337
Volkswagen Microbus31.5%30.1%5,914
Porsche 92431.3%30.4%35,775
Volkswagen 150030.8%29.9%5,945
Volkswagen Camper30.6%31.9%143,080
Volkswagen Campervan29.6%31.5%13,279
Bedford Cf29.3%33.4%18,101
Vauxhall Midi28.7%35.5%18,680

Other MOT failure areas

How the other DVSA failure areas break down, each with the models that fail it most.

Failure area
Brake MOT failures
Tyre MOT failures
Lighting and electrical MOT failures
Suspension MOT failures
Steering MOT failures
Exhaust and emissions MOT failures
Seat belt MOT failures
Body and structure MOT failures
Number plate MOT failures

Sources: DVSA MOT History API: MOT test results and defect data ยท DVSA MOT testing data for Great Britain