We at Find-a-Part have completed a small facebook application - the MOT Failure Rates App - which may be of some interest to people, as it features MOT Failure data for cars based on the Manufacturer, Model and Year. You type in your make and model, select your year of manufacture, and then the application displays the pass rate, and where failures occured, which areas of the car failed.
This data has provoked much discussion on bulletin boards and on the BBC website, where the initial data was made available, after the beeb contacted VOSA with a Freedom of Information request.
It should be said that the driver can be as responsible for the condition of the car as the manufacturer (as my wife will testify after cleaning out the parcel shelf last weekend), and as some cars get used more often as fleet cars or commercial vehicles than others (we tend to get more requests on these cars too), so there may be a higher likelihood of a car with a high MOT rate.
Eagle-eyed BBC website contributors have noticed mistakes in the data too, with one car being tested that was registered in the late 19th century, apparently. Transcription errors are always likely in multi-format data.
