MOT pass rate · 2025 data
Smart City MOT pass rate
The Smart City passed 66.96% of its 4,189 initial MOT tests in 2025 — below the 77.3% average across all cars tested that year. That is 10.3 percentage points worse than average.
How the Smart City 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 Smart City grouped by the vehicle's age at the time of the test.
| Age at test | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| 6–10 years | 1 | 100% |
| 11 years and over | 4,188 | 66.95% |
Why the Smart City fails its MOT
Across every Smart City that failed its 2025 MOT, the most common area of failure was lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment, accounting for 33.97% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 33.97% | 1,561 |
| Suspension | 16.04% | 737 |
| Brakes | 13.32% | 612 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 10.6% | 487 |
| Visibility | 9.14% | 420 |
| Tyres | 6.18% | 284 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 35.46% | 256 |
| Suspension | 17.73% | 128 |
| Brakes | 12.6% | 91 |
| Visibility | 10.8% | 78 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 9.28% | 67 |
| Tyres | 4.71% | 34 |
How the Smart City compares
Ranked on pass rate, the Smart City sits 566th of 651 models in this data , and 5th of the 5 Smart models covered . Smart as a whole averaged 77.32%, so this model runs 10.4 points behind its own brand average.
What this means when buying a used Smart City
A pass rate is a population average, not a verdict on the specific car in front of you. The average Smart City came to its 2025 test at 68,356 miles and 20.4 years old. Most examples tested were petrol.
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 Smart City
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 Smart models
- Smart Fortwo 77.99% pass rate · 46,964 tests
- Smart Forfour 78.04% pass rate · 22,240 tests
- Smart Roadster 76.34% pass rate · 1,581 tests
- Smart Unclassified 75.59% pass rate · 1,565 tests
Models with a similar pass rate
- Vauxhall Meriva 67.78% pass rate
- Ford Fusion 67.91% pass rate
- Vauxhall Agila 66.97% pass rate
- Renault Twingo 66.24% pass rate
- Alfa Romeo Mito 66.26% pass rate
- Suzuki Splash 67.81% 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.