MOT pass rate · 2025 data
Nissan Pulsar MOT pass rate
The Nissan Pulsar passed 74.15% of its 20,882 initial MOT tests in 2025 — below the 77.3% average across all cars tested that year. That is 3.1 percentage points worse than average.
How the Nissan Pulsar holds up with age
Every car fails the MOT more often as it gets older. What matters when you are buying is how steeply that happens for this particular model. These are the 2025 pass rates for the Nissan Pulsar grouped by the vehicle's age at the time of the test.
| Age at test | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| 3–5 years | 2 | 100% |
| 6–10 years | 19,495 | 74.62% |
| 11 years and over | 1,385 | 67.58% |
The Nissan Pulsar drops 32.4 percentage points between its early years and the 11-plus bracket, which is a steep decline. On an older example, the MOT history is worth reading closely before you buy.
Why the Nissan Pulsar fails its MOT
Across every Nissan Pulsar that failed its 2025 MOT, the most common area of failure was suspension, accounting for 33.28% of all recorded failure items. These are the areas worth having checked before you buy, and worth budgeting for on an older example.
| Failure area | Share of failure items | Recorded items |
|---|---|---|
| Suspension | 33.28% | 3,820 |
| Brakes | 21.48% | 2,466 |
| Tyres | 14.6% | 1,676 |
| Steering | 9.52% | 1,093 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 9.46% | 1,086 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 4.83% | 555 |
How the Nissan Pulsar compares
Ranked on pass rate, the Nissan Pulsar sits 445th of 651 models in this data , and 12th of the 26 Nissan models covered . Nissan as a whole averaged 73.3%, so this model runs 0.9 points ahead of its own brand average.
What this means when buying a used Nissan Pulsar
A pass rate is a population average, not a verdict on the specific car in front of you. The average Nissan Pulsar came to its 2025 test at 64,267 miles and 9.2 years old. Most examples tested were petrol, though 30.55% were diesel.
The useful check is the individual car's own MOT record: how many times it has failed, what for, and whether advisories keep reappearing. A recurring advisory on corrosion, suspension or brakes tells you far more than a model-wide average, and a mileage that does not move consistently between tests is a warning in itself.
Check a specific Nissan Pulsar
Run the registration through a free MOT history check to see that car's test results, advisories and recorded mileages. For the risks an MOT never covers — outstanding finance, insurance write-off records, stolen markers and ownership history — a full car history check brings them together in one £15 report.
Also useful: mileage check · write-off check · free car check
Other Nissan models
- Nissan Qashqai 73.5% pass rate · 598,809 tests
- Nissan Juke 74.48% pass rate · 326,752 tests
- Nissan Micra 71.53% pass rate · 236,651 tests
- Nissan Note 71.95% pass rate · 146,823 tests
- Nissan X-Trail 72.91% pass rate · 86,841 tests
- Nissan Navara 72.47% pass rate · 69,014 tests
Models with a similar pass rate
- Ford Focus 74.62% pass rate
- Ford Transit 74.63% pass rate
- Volkswagen Polo 73.12% pass rate
- Honda Civic 74.32% pass rate
- Vauxhall Mokka 74.37% pass rate
- Citroen C3 74.75% pass rate
Figures aggregated from the DVSA MOT Anonymised data set for 2025, class 4 initial tests only, contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Retests are excluded, so these are first-time pass rates.