Milestone for MoTs marked by failures list

Cars most likely to fail the MOT test have been revealed in a new study of top selling vehicles.

It found that three-year-old Renault Meganes examined in 2009 had a one in four chance of failing, while similarly aged Vauxhall Corsas had a one in five chance.

For five-year-old cars, the Corsa had the biggest number of failures, 39 per cent, while over a third (35 per cent) of Meganes failed. This compared with one in five Ford Fiestas, which was shown to be the best performer of the top ten selling model of that year.

The research by Nationwide Autocentres examined the records of 265,000 tests carried out at 225 of its centres across the UK on three-year-old, five-year-old and ten-year-old cars.

The research ?has been produced to mark the 50th anniversary of the test. While the research could not take into account the way a vehicle was driven or the frequency of servicing, it showed the need for higher mileage and older cars to be regularly maintained to avoid problems with the annual test.

With the average cost of work needed to repair a car failing the MOT being 82, the data revealed how Britons are spending more than 920 million a year correcting faults thrown up by a test failure.

The Ford Focus, the UK's top selling car in 1999, 2004 and 2006, the years covered by the report, performed better than the average and was 6 per cent less likely to fail than average.

Bill Duffy, chief operations officer at Nationwide Autocentres said: "This report shows the importance of having the car regularly serviced and not relying on the MOT to show up faults. Motorists are spending money unnecessarily having repairs that could have been spotted and sorted much earlier in the life of a car."

The study comes as the government considers a move to extend the legal gap between MOT tests to two years.