Does the Smart City fail the MOT on vehicle identification more than it should?

The Smart City records 0.66 vehicle identification failure items per 100 initial MOT tests (2019–2024), against 0.68 expected for a car of the same age mix: about as expected for its class and age (the difference is within its interval or under 0.5 items per 100 tests) (−0.02, 95% interval −0.21 to +0.18). It ranks 345 of 636 models on vehicle identification (1 = most failures above expected).

Data release dvsa-2024-v2 (24 Sep 2026) · page updated 30 Sep 2026 · all models on vehicle identification · check a Smart City by registration

No single vehicle identification defect wording reaches 30 items on the Smart City; the failures are spread across several.