Does the Smart Forfour fail the MOT on seat belts and airbags more than it should?

The Smart Forfour records 0.41 seat belts and airbags failure items per 100 initial MOT tests (2019–2024), against 0.76 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) (−0.35, 95% interval −0.40 to −0.30). It ranks 426 of 627 models on seat belts and airbags (1 = most failures above expected).

Data release dvsa-2024-v2 (24 Sep 2026) · page updated 30 Sep 2026 · all models on seat belts and airbags · check a Smart Forfour by registration

What exactly fails on seat belts and airbags?

The most frequent DVSA defect wording in this group on the Smart Forfour is “An SRS malfunction indicator lamp (MIL) indicates a system malfunction”, recorded 316 times in 2019–2024.

Smart Forfour: most frequent seat belts and airbags defect wordings, 2019–2024 (30+ items each)
DVSA defect wording	Items	Per 100 tests
An SRS malfunction indicator lamp (MIL) indicates a system malfunction	316	0.23
Seat belt not functioning as intended or of an incorrect type	48	0.04
Seat belt buckle missing, damaged or not functioning as intended	46	0.03
Seat belt retractor not functioning as intended	45	0.03
A seat belt or flexible stalk damaged	33	0.02

Source: DVSA MOT bulk data (OGL v3.0) · Window: 2019–2024 · n = 136,129 (initial tests) · Method: failure items (major and minor) grouped by DVSA's defect tree; wordings with 30+ items · Updated: 30 Sep 2026 · Release: dvsa-2024-v2 · CSV

Does the Smart Forfour fail the MOT on seat belts and airbags more than it should?

What exactly fails on seat belts and airbags?

Related pages

Other pages for this model