National record · 829 million tests

Buying a used van: what the MOT record tells you

A three-year-old van has the mileage of a six-year-old car and fails its test at the same rate. Which model you pick matters twice as much as whether you pick a van at all — and the vehicle’s own history matters more than either.

32 models comparedFree, no sign-upOpen data

A van reaching its first MOT at three years old has covered 53,657 miles and fails 22.40% of the time. A car does not reach either figure until it is six. Across thirty-two models the failure rate at three to six years ranges from 15.94% to 31.63%, a spread more than twice the gap between vans and cars.

3 = 6

a three-year-old van sits where a six-year-old car sits, on both mileage and failure rate

15.7pts

separate the best and worst model at the same age — twice the gap between vans and cars

0.33

correlation between mileage and failure across models: the number buyers weigh hardest explains least

What this page is built from

Every figure here comes from the national record of MOT tests, published as open data by the DVSA and covering every test carried out in Great Britain. We have analysed it across six separate pieces of work on vans, and this page pulls the buying-relevant parts of all six into one place.

It contains no opinions about which van to buy and no dealer-sourced advice. What it gives you is the order in which the evidence should be weighed, which turns out to be almost the opposite of how most people buy a van.

Inspection standards referenced on this page come from the DVSA MOT inspection manual for private passenger and light commercial vehicles, which applies in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland operates a separate system administered by the DVA and the figures here do not apply there. Outcome data comes from our analysis of the DVSA MOT testing dataset. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Why van years are not car years

Most people buying second-hand start with the age on the logbook. On a van that number means something different from what it means on a car, and the national record lets us say by how much.

Vehicle ageVan mileageCar mileageVan failsCar fails
3 years53,65731,78322.40%15.10%
6 years86,83956,05227.78%22.50%
10 years116,59783,80533.06%30.40%
15 years129,960100,74334.65%33.60%

Median odometer reading and share of tests ending in failure, by vehicle age. Source: PriceMyRepair analysis of the DVSA MOT testing dataset.

The same conversion, reached two different ways

Read the top row across. A van at its first test has covered 53,657 miles; a car reaches 56,052 at six years. A van at its first test fails 22.40% of the time; a car reaches 22.50% at six years.

Distance travelled and test outcome are recorded separately, calculated separately and have no arithmetic relationship to one another. Both land on the same conversion: three years of van life against six years of car life.

What that is useful for, and what it is not

It is a way of calibrating your expectations. If you would think twice about a six-year-old car at that price, think twice about the three-year-old van too. If you are moving from cars to vans and the mileage on the forecourt looks alarming, it is probably normal.

It is not a statement that the two vehicles are equivalent in any broader sense. Two measures agreeing is strong evidence about those two measures. It says nothing about value, remaining life or what either will cost to run.

The gap closes, which changes what age you should buy at

At three years the van fails 7.30 percentage points more often than the car. By ten years that is 2.66, and by fifteen it is 1.05. Both curves climb, but the distance between them shrinks the whole way.

The mileage ratio does the same thing: 1.69 times a car’s distance at three years, 1.39 at ten, 1.29 at fifteen. Whatever makes a young van distinctive erodes as the vehicle ages.

For a buyer that cuts in an unexpected direction. The penalty for buying a van rather than a car is largest on nearly-new stock and smallest on old stock — the opposite of what the mileage figures alone would suggest. We set both patterns out in full in the comparison against cars and average van mileage.

One caution on the bottom rows

Failure rates for both vehicle types peak at around fifteen years and then drift down. That is not vehicles improving with age. Vans still being presented for testing at eighteen or twenty are a small and unrepresentative remnant of those registered that long ago, and the survivors are disproportionately the ones somebody chose to look after.

Treat every figure past about fifteen years as describing the survivors rather than the age.

Choosing the model

At three to six years old, 15.69 percentage points separate the best van from the worst. The gap between vans and cars as a whole is 7.30. Which van you pick matters roughly twice as much as whether you pick a van.

ModelFails at 3–6 yearsFails at 12+ years
Volkswagen Amarok15.94%26.22%†
Ford Tourneo18.49%31.11%†
Ford Ranger20.07%32.79%
Volkswagen Transporter20.40%31.70%
Volkswagen Caddy20.96%31.24%
Fiat Ducato21.17%27.17%
Peugeot Boxer22.75%28.23%
Mercedes-Benz Sprinter25.18%32.86%
Ford Transit26.35%37.27%
Vauxhall Vivaro27.92%36.42%
Nissan Primastar31.63%36.02%

Selected models from a ranking of thirty-two. † marks a twelve-plus figure resting on fewer than twenty thousand tests, where the model is too recent for that band to be reliable. The full table is in our ranking of all thirty-two. Source: PriceMyRepair analysis of the DVSA MOT testing dataset.

Match the column to the van in front of you

The two columns produce different answers, and that is the most useful thing on this page. Buying at three or four years, read the left column. Buying at ten or twelve, read the right one.

The Ducato illustrates it. Sixth in the left column and first in the right — at twelve years it records the lowest figure of any van in the dataset, better than models that started six points ahead of it. Buying an older van on the strength of a nearly-new ranking would put it well down your list.

A strong start predicts a fast decline

Across all thirty-two models, the correlation between a good early record and a steep later fall is −0.65. That is a substantial relationship — roughly twice the strength of the link between mileage and failure.

Some of it is arithmetic: a model starting at 16% has more room to worsen than one starting at 32%. Some of it may be that the people using a twelve-year-old vehicle are not the people who used it when it was three. The record cannot separate the two, so treat an impressive three-year figure as a weak guide to year ten. The full analysis is in which vans hold up best.

The comparison that shows what this table is really measuring

The Fiat Ducato, Peugeot Boxer and Citroën Relay come off the same production line and differ mainly in badge and trim. If this ranking measured build quality they would land together. At twelve years the Ducato records 27.17% and the Relay 36.60% — nine and a half points apart on mechanically identical vehicles.

So the table is measuring the population of vans wearing each badge: who buys them, what work they do, how they are looked after. That is still useful to a buyer, because you are choosing from that same population. It is not a verdict on how the vehicle was built, and nobody should read it as one.

Where the model ranking sits in the order of evidence

It matters more than the van-against-car question and more than the mileage. It matters less than the individual vehicle’s own history, which is the subject of the next section and the only evidence that describes the van you are actually buying.

Reading the vehicle’s own record

Everything above this point describes populations. The test history describes the van in front of you, and it is public, free and available in a few seconds from the registration.

  1. Count the failures, then read what they wereA van with three failures across six tests has a pattern; one with a single failure ten years ago does not. Look at what the failures were for, not just how many. Suspension and structure recur; a blown bulb does not.
  2. Look for the same advisory twiceAn item advised at one test and advised again at the next is deferred work, not bad luck. Across every model in the record, roughly a third of advisories come back unfixed — and the difference between the best and worst vans lies in which ones get ignored rather than how many.
  3. Weight brake advisories heavily on a mid-life vanBetween seven and eleven years, a brake advisory on a van becomes a failure 13.67% of the time against 8.64% on a car — the widest gap in the whole dataset. On a van of that age it is the single line worth reading twice.
  4. Check the gaps between testsA missing year usually means the vehicle was off the road, declared unused or sitting. Neither is disqualifying, but both are worth a question, and a van that stood for a year has its own set of problems.
  5. Read the mileage between tests, not just the totalThe sequence of odometer readings shows how the van was used year by year. A vehicle that did 25,000 miles a year for three years and then 4,000 has changed job or changed owner, and the wear will not be evenly spread.
  6. Note anything advised on the most recent certificateThose are the items you are buying. The national median between an advisory being written and the failure it becomes is 376 days, which is roughly one test cycle — long enough to forget, short enough to matter before the next MOT.
All of it is free and takes seconds

Enter the registration in our history check and you get every test the vehicle has ever taken: dates, results, every advisory in full wording and the recorded mileage at each. No sign-up, no payment, and it works for any registration, whether or not you own the vehicle.

If the advisory wording is unfamiliar, the advisory glossary translates the standard phrases into plain English.

Why advisories deserve more weight on a van

Across the whole record, 12.00% of advisories recorded on vans turn into failures at the next test, against 10.79% on cars. Taken as one number that difference is small. Broken down by category it is not: brakes, body and steering all show substantially wider gaps, and those are the expensive categories.

What that means when buying is that an advisory on a van is a stronger signal than the same words on a car. It is a qualified inspector writing down that a component is close enough to the limit to be worth recording, on a vehicle type where those warnings convert more often. The full analysis is in the van advisory index.

The one comparison worth making before you commit

Take the van’s own record and set it against the model figures above. A Transit with six clean tests is a better bet than a Ducato with three failures, whatever the model averages say. Population data tells you where to start looking; the vehicle’s history tells you what you are buying.

If the two disagree, the individual record wins. It is the only evidence on this page that describes the actual vehicle.

What the odometer is worth

Mileage is the number buyers weigh hardest, and across thirty-two van models it explains less about test outcomes than almost anything else on this page. That does not make it useless. It makes it useful for a different purpose than most people use it for.

ModelMiles at first testFails first test
Mercedes-Benz Sprinter95,00022.10%
Volkswagen Crafter75,00023.02%
Mercedes-Benz Vito65,00021.59%
Ford Transit55,00023.76%
Volkswagen Transporter45,00018.51%
Volkswagen Amarok45,00013.94%
Fiat Doblo35,00021.57%
Fiat Ducato25,00019.35%

Median odometer reading at the first test, taken at three years old. Source values are rounded to the nearest five thousand miles in the underlying dataset, so read these as bands rather than exact totals. Source: PriceMyRepair analysis of the DVSA MOT testing dataset.

The top and bottom of that table run the wrong way

The Sprinter covers 95,000 miles by its first test, more than any other model, and fails 22.10% of the time. The Transit covers 55,000 and fails 23.76%. The hardest-worked van on British roads passes more often than one doing barely half the distance.

Across all thirty-two models the correlation between mileage and failure rate is 0.333 — weak. Fifteen models record the same 45,000 miles at three years old, and their failure rates run from 13.94% to 25.22%, a spread of 11.28 percentage points at identical distance.

What that does and does not mean for you

It does not mean mileage is irrelevant. A correlation of 0.333 is a real relationship, and a van at 140,000 miles has genuinely done more than one at 40,000.

It means mileage is a weaker predictor of condition than the test history is, and a much weaker one than most forecourt conversations assume. If you are choosing between a higher-mileage van with a clean record and a lower-mileage one with repeated advisories, the record is the better guide. The full analysis is in average van mileage.

Judge the figure against the model, not the market

At three years old the median runs from 25,000 miles on a Ducato to 95,000 on a Sprinter. The same odometer reading is unremarkable on one and exceptional on another, so a figure that looks high in the abstract may be entirely normal for the vehicle in front of you.

The Ducato is the clearest case: it records less distance at three years than a car of the same age, because a large share of them are motorhome conversions covering leisure miles and standing over winter. A commercial registration does not imply commercial use, and the odometer is often the only thing that reveals which you are looking at.

The one thing the odometer is genuinely good for

Not judging condition — spotting a lie. Every MOT records a reading, so a vehicle’s history is a sequence of them stretching back to its first test. That sequence is public. A reading that goes backwards, or a year that adds 2,000 miles between four years that each added 18,000, is visible to anyone who looks.

Readings are not verified at the test — a tester records what the instrument displays and nothing confirms it is genuine. That is exactly why the sequence matters more than the number: tampering is hard to hide across six consecutive public records. You can pull the full sequence for any registration with the mileage checker, or see it alongside advisories and results in the full history check.

Where mileage belongs in the order of evidence

Below the vehicle’s test history and below the model. Above nothing much, except as a check on whether the story you are being told is consistent.

It also predicts one thing well that failure rates do not: how soon the van reaches mileage-based service items. A vehicle covering 18,000 miles a year hits intervals roughly twice as often as a car doing 9,000, which is covered in the service cost guide.

Weight class and where you test it

One number in the van’s paperwork decides which class of MOT it takes for as long as you own it. The fee difference is trivial. The difference in how many garages can test the vehicle is not.

Design gross weightTest classWhat it means for you
Up to 3,000kgClass 4Most garages can test it
3,001kg to 3,500kgClass 7Far fewer approved stations
Above 3,500kgNot an MOTAnnual DVSA test at their own stations

Design gross weight is the maximum weight the manufacturer designed the vehicle to operate at, including load. It is not the weight of the empty van. Source: published DVSA fee schedule and inspection manual.

Why it matters when buying rather than when testing

The fee difference between the two classes is a few pounds and most garages charge well under the cap either way. What changes is the list of places that can take the vehicle at all.

A Class 7 bay has to be physically larger, with a lift and brake rollers rated for the weight, so plenty of otherwise good garages cannot offer it. Fewer approved stations means fewer quotes to compare, fewer slots when you need one, and a longer wait if the vehicle fails and needs a retest. If the van is how you earn, that wait is usually the expensive part.

You cannot answer this from the model

Manufacturers sell the same nameplate in variants on both sides of the 3,000kg line. Two vans of identical model and body length can need different test classes because one is plated at 2,900kg and the other at 3,200kg.

Published lists of which models need which class contradict one another for exactly that reason, including about the same model stated with equal confidence on both sides. Check the vehicle, not the badge.

Where to find the number

Two places, and they should agree. The manufacturer’s plate, usually in the driver’s door pillar or under the bonnet, carrying the vehicle identification number and a set of weights. Or the V5C, in a field described as revenue weight or gross weight.

The plate usually shows four figures in a column. The first is the maximum weight of the vehicle itself and that is the one that decides the class. The second is the vehicle plus a trailer and is always higher — reading it by mistake is the most common error here, and if you have found a number above 3,500kg on an ordinary van, that is almost certainly what has happened. The full explanation is in Class 7 MOT cost.

Ask the seller before you view

Design gross weight is one line on the V5C and any seller can read it out over the phone. Asking early saves a wasted journey if the vehicle turns out to be heavier than you can accommodate, and it tells you something about the seller.

It is also worth knowing before you commit, because the class travels with the vehicle. A van that is awkward to get tested this year will be awkward every year you own it.

The walk-round

You cannot put a stranger’s van on a ramp, and most of what fails an older one sits underneath. What you can do is check the things that are visible, and know which of them the record says actually matter.

  1. Start with the paperwork, not the vanPull the test history on your phone before you walk round it. Ten minutes with the record tells you more than an hour with the vehicle, and it tells you what to look at when you do walk round. A van with repeated suspension advisories deserves a different inspection from one with a clean sheet.
  2. Every lamp, including the ones nobody usesLighting is roughly 15% of van failures and the share barely changes with age. A long body carries more marker lamps than a car, mounted where they collect road spray. It is also the cheapest thing on the vehicle to put right, so a van with three lamps out tells you something about how it has been kept rather than about the lamps.
  3. Bounce each corner, then listen on the test drivePush down hard and release: a healthy damper settles in about one movement. Suspension and axles are the largest category of van failures at every age, rising from 13.44% of failed items at three to six years to 21.15% past twelve. On the drive, take a rough surface slowly with the window down and listen for knocks front and rear.
  4. Tyres, and specifically the inner edgeTurn the wheel to full lock and look behind it. Loads and the resulting geometry wear the inside shoulder faster than the outside on a van, and it is the part you cannot see standing in front of the vehicle. Uneven wear across the tread is worth a question about alignment.
  5. Brakes, by feel on the driveA pedal that sinks under steady pressure, pulling to one side, or grinding all mean work needed. Brake condition is the one category that takes roughly the same share of failures at every age, so a three-year-old van deserves the same attention here as a twelve-year-old one.
  6. Look along the sills and around the mounting pointsStructure climbs from 4.11% of failed items on a young van to 9.15% past twelve years. You will see a fraction of what a tester sees, but flaking or damage near a suspension mounting or a jacking point is worth finding before you commit, not after.
  7. The load area and the sliding doorOpen and close it several times. It must latch securely, and a door that has been forced or dropped on its runners is expensive in a way that is not obvious from the driver’s seat. Look at the floor and the load restraint points for how hard the vehicle has actually worked.
  8. Warning lights, before and after startingThey should illuminate on the ignition and go out. An airbag, ABS, brake or engine management light that stays on is a failure item in its own right, regardless of how the vehicle drives. A dashboard where a bulb has been removed is a different conversation entirely.
What a walk-round genuinely cannot do

On a van past about ten years, suspension and structure together make up close to a third of everything it fails on, and both are assessed with the wheels off the ground. Nothing you can do standing in a car park substitutes for that.

If the vehicle is otherwise right and the money is significant, an independent inspection on a ramp costs a fraction of what one suspension job costs. On an older van it is the single most useful thing you can buy before committing.

Adjust the inspection to the age

On a van of three to six years, most of what fails is visible from standing height: lamps, tyres, plates, wipers, warning lights. A careful walk-round covers a good share of the risk.

Past ten years the balance shifts underneath, and the walk-round covers proportionally less. That is not a reason to skip it — it is a reason to weight the test history more heavily and to consider paying someone with a lift. What fails at each age is set out in the van MOT checklist, and what the MOT actually inspects covers the whole test section by section.

A note on how to read these percentages

The figures above are shares of what vans of that age fail on, not how often they fail. An older van fails more often overall, so a category can take a smaller share of its failures while still occurring more frequently.

What they tell you is where to spend your attention for a van of a given age. They do not tell you that a young van has better suspension than an old one.

The first three months

Whatever was on the last certificate is now yours. The national median between an advisory being written and the failure it becomes is 376 days, which means most of what was advised on the van you just bought will come due before its next test.

Deal with the advisories you inherited

Roughly a third of advisories come back unfixed at the next test across every model in the record. The previous owner deferred them; the question is whether you will too, and on a van those warnings convert into failures more often than on a car.

What happens to van advisories

Establish a baseline

A service early in your ownership tells you what you actually bought, on a ramp, with the wheels off. It is also the cheapest point to find out, because you still have the option of concluding the purchase was a mistake.

What a service covers

Diarise the test date

You can test up to a month minus one day before expiry while keeping the anniversary. On a van that window matters more than on a car, because fewer stations may be able to take it.

Which class and where

Which inherited advisory to act on first

If the van is between seven and eleven years old and the certificate mentions brakes, that is the line to deal with. Brake advisories on vans of that age turn into failures 13.67% of the time against 8.64% on cars — the widest gap anywhere in the dataset, and the one category where waiting has a road-safety consequence rather than only a financial one.

On a younger van, suspension advisories convert at the highest rate relative to cars. On one past twelve years, structure. That ordering is specific to vans and is not the ordering a car owner would be given.

Price the work while you still have time

An advisory gives you roughly a test cycle of warning. Getting a quote in the first weeks of ownership, while the certificate still runs and the van is legally on the road, is a completely different negotiation from getting one after a failure with the vehicle standing.

What the common jobs cost is indexed under repair costs. If the wording on the certificate is unfamiliar, the advisory glossary translates the standard phrases.

If you are still deciding

Everything on this page rests on six separate pieces of analysis of the national record, and each covers one part of the question in full: how vans compare with cars, which vans hold up best, what mileage to expect, what happens to advisories, what fails at each age and which test class applies.

The order of evidence, if you read nothing else: the vehicle’s own test history first, the model second, the age third, the mileage last.

Price the work before you commit

Enter the registration and your postcode to see what garages near you charge for the items on the van’s certificate. No pre-payment, and you deal with the garage directly.

Compare live quotes

We earn a commission if you book through this link, at no cost to you. It does not affect which garages you are shown or what they charge. Our funding page explains how the site pays for itself. You can also check any registration free, with no sign-up.

Sources and method

This page introduces no new analysis. It assembles the buying-relevant findings from six separate pieces of work on the national MOT record, each of which carries its own full methodology.

The dataset

The DVSA publishes the complete record of MOT tests as open data. Our analysis uses the most recent full snapshot: 829,654,015 tests across 137,840,356 vehicles. We use tests carried out by DVSA only, excluding those recorded by the DVA in Northern Ireland and by the DVLA, and only outcomes recorded as a pass or a fail. Thirty-two commercial models were classified from the vehicle record.

829,654,015tests analysed 32van models compared 6source analyses 3 to 20age range covered

What this page cannot tell you

Six limitations, stated plainly

Populations, not predictions. Every figure describes what happened to thousands of vehicles. None of it predicts what will happen to the one van in front of you, which is why the vehicle’s own history outranks everything else on this page.

An MOT result is not reliability. The test covers roadworthiness against a published standard. It says nothing about breakdowns, engine or gearbox failures, warranty claims or running costs. A van can be thoroughly unreliable in the ordinary sense and pass every year.

Odometer readings are not verified. A tester records what the instrument shows and nothing confirms it is genuine. Mileage in the processed data is also held in bands of five thousand miles, so no model figure should be read as more precise than that.

Identical vehicles produce different figures. The Ducato, Boxer and Relay come off the same production line and record results nine and a half points apart at twelve years. The rankings measure the population of vehicles wearing each badge, not how they were built.

Survivorship past fifteen years. Vehicles still being tested that late are not a random sample of those registered when they were new. Figures at the oldest ages describe the survivors.

No prices. Nothing here quotes what a repair or a vehicle costs. Repair costs live in our cost guides, which are updated separately and carry their own sourcing.

Free to cite

Every figure on this page may be reproduced in any publication with attribution. No permission is needed and nothing sits behind a form. If a different cut of the underlying data would be more useful, we will produce it on request.

Suggested citation: PriceMyRepair, Buying a used van: what the MOT record tells you, analysis of the DVSA MOT testing dataset. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

We are not affiliated with the DVSA, the DVLA, any manufacturer, dealer or garage group. The analysis, the classifications and any errors in them are ours alone. Corrections are welcome and will be published on this page rather than made silently.

Questions

What people ask before buying a used van, and the questions these figures raise.

What should I check before buying a used van?

The vehicle’s own MOT history first, because it is the only evidence that describes the actual van. Then the model, then the age, then the mileage. That order is close to the reverse of how most people buy, and it follows from the data: mileage correlates with failure at only 0.333 across thirty-two models, while the spread between models is 15.69 percentage points.

Is a three-year-old van the same as a three-year-old car?

Not on the measures we can check. A van at its first test has covered 53,657 miles and fails 22.40% of the time; a car does not reach either figure until it is six. Two independent measures produce the same three-to-six conversion, which is stronger evidence than either alone.

Does the model matter more than the age?

Between three and six years old, 15.69 percentage points separate the best van from the worst. The gap between vans and cars as a whole is 7.30. So which van you buy matters roughly twice as much as whether you buy a van at all — but neither outranks the individual vehicle’s test record.

Which used van should I buy?

We do not recommend models, because the answer depends on what you need the vehicle to do and because the ranking changes with age. What we can say is that at three to six years the Volkswagen Amarok records the lowest failure rate at 15.94% and the Nissan Primastar the highest at 31.63%, and that past twelve years the Fiat Ducato records the lowest of any model at 27.17%.

Why does the ranking change as vans get older?

Across thirty-two models the correlation between a good early record and a steep later decline is −0.65, which is strong. Some of that is arithmetic, since a model starting at 16% has more room to worsen than one starting at 32%. Some may be that the people using a twelve-year-old van are not the people who used it when it was three. The record cannot separate the two.

How do I check a van’s MOT history?

Enter the registration on our free history check. You get every test the vehicle has taken, with dates, results, the full wording of every advisory and the recorded mileage at each test. No sign-up and no payment, and it works for any registration whether or not you own the vehicle.

Is high mileage a problem on a van?

Less than most buyers assume. The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter covers 95,000 miles by its first test, more than any other model, and fails less often than the Ford Transit at 55,000. Across all thirty-two models the correlation between mileage and failure rate is 0.333, which is weak. A higher-mileage van with a clean test record is usually the better bet over a lower-mileage one with repeated advisories.

What should I make of advisories on the last certificate?

They are the work you are inheriting. The national median between an advisory being recorded and the failure it becomes is 376 days, so most of what was advised will come due before the next test. On a van those warnings convert into failures more often than on a car — 12.00% against 10.79% overall, and considerably wider on brakes, body and steering.

Which advisory should I deal with first?

It depends on the age. On a van of seven to eleven years, brakes: a brake advisory at that age becomes a failure 13.67% of the time against 8.64% on a car, the widest gap in the dataset. On a younger van, suspension. Past twelve years, structure. That ordering is specific to vans.

The Ducato, Boxer and Relay are the same van. Why do they score differently?

They come off the same production line and differ mainly in badge and trim, yet at twelve years the Ducato records 27.17% and the Relay 36.60% — nine and a half points apart on mechanically identical vehicles. That tells you the rankings measure the population of vans wearing each badge, including who buys them and what work they do, rather than how they were built.

Does the weight class matter when buying?

Yes, though not for the fee, which differs by a few pounds. A van over 3,000kg design gross weight needs a Class 7 test, and far fewer garages have a bay large enough to carry one out. That means fewer quotes, fewer slots and a longer wait after a failure, for as long as you own the vehicle. It cannot be answered from the model, because the same nameplate is sold in variants on both sides of the line.

Does any of this apply in Northern Ireland?

No. Northern Ireland operates a separate testing system administered by the DVA, with its own fees, classes and booking arrangements. The figures on this page cover England, Scotland and Wales only.

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