What 4,402 MOT tests in 2025 say about buying one used — and, just as important, what they cannot tell you.
Judged against every other electric car of the same age — at 3 years old — this one passes at 87.5% against 87.2% for the electric fleet. That is close enough to call it a wash. Neither the problem nor the answer: judge the individual car, not the badge. And whatever the MOT record says, it tells you nothing about the battery — no record does. Only a physical test measures that.
Battery warranty terms per model year — years, mileage cap, capacity-retention threshold, and whether it transfers to a second owner — have to be traced to the manufacturer’s own published documentation, row by row, and dated. That table has not been built.
We will not sell you a battery state-of-health figure we have not measured. Ours would be a guess, so we are not selling it. Where a physical test is worth its roughly £100, we will say so plainly.
| Advisory category | Items | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tyres | 1,665 | 60.6% |
| Brakes | 505 | 18.4% |
| Suspension | 280 | 10.2% |
| Non-component advisories | 225 | 8.2% |
| Identification of the vehicle | 33 | 1.2% |
| Road Wheels | 19 | 0.7% |
Advisories are warnings. These are the items that actually failed a test — the ones that cost money before the car can be driven away.
| Failure category | Items | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tyres | 315 | 43.3% |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 209 | 28.7% |
| Visibility | 116 | 16.0% |
| Suspension | 52 | 7.2% |
| Brakes | 12 | 1.7% |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 10 | 1.4% |
| Body, chassis, structure | 8 | 1.1% |
| Steering | 3 | 0.4% |
You will read everywhere that electric cars destroy tyres — heavier, and all the torque at once. It is true of some and not others, and the only fair way to look is at cars of the same age.
At three to five years old, tyres are 58.8% of this model’s top advisory items. Petrol hatchbacks of the same age average 40.0%. So it is well above them.
| Model, aged 3–5 | Tyres as a share of top advisories |
|---|---|
| MG4 electric | 58.8% |
| Golf petrol | 51.4% |
| Fiesta petrol | 44.9% |
| Focus petrol | 43.7% |
| Astra petrol | 32.2% |
| Corsa petrol | 27.6% |
This page describes the model. The free check describes the car in front of you.
The check costs nothing. A free account is needed so results can be saved and cars compared side by side — no card, no charge. Paid reports are extra and every price is on the page before you type a registration, never after.