What 1,568 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 its MOT first time 91.2% of the time, against 87.2% for the electric fleet. That is 4.0 points better, and it is a real gap rather than an age effect: we weighted the comparison so both sides have the same age mix. 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 | 663 | 68.2% |
| Brakes | 160 | 16.5% |
| Non-component advisories | 93 | 9.6% |
| Identification of the vehicle | 31 | 3.2% |
| Suspension | 22 | 2.3% |
| Visibility | 2 | 0.2% |
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 | 87 | 43.1% |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 49 | 24.3% |
| Visibility | 36 | 17.8% |
| Brakes | 12 | 5.9% |
| Suspension | 11 | 5.4% |
| Identification of the vehicle | 5 | 2.5% |
| Body, chassis, structure | 2 | 1.0% |
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 58.7% 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 |
|---|---|
| Ariya electric | 58.7% |
| Golf petrol | 51.4% |
| Fiesta petrol | 44.9% |
| Focus petrol | 43.7% |
| Astra petrol | 32.2% |
| Corsa petrol | 27.6% |
MOT data says how these cars behave. DVLA’s licensing figures say how many exist — and how many have been taken off the road without being scrapped. A car declared SORN is parked up. On an electric car that is often a pack nobody wants to replace.
| Registered | Ariya on the road | Ariya SORN | Petrol hatchbacks SORN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 1,327 | 1.4% | 0.5% |
| 2023 | 2,509 | 0.7% | 0.9% |
| 2024 | 6,172 | 0.2% | 0.6% |
| 2025 | 3,805 | 0.1% | 1.3% |
Same registration year on both sides, so this is the cars and not their ages. Petrol benchmark: Fiesta, Corsa, Golf and Focus combined.
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