BMW 130 MOT reliability

BMW 130s passed their MOT first time 76% of the time across 834 tests in 2025.

Example photo of a BMW 130 — Photo: Alexander-93 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

First-time pass rate

76%

MOTs analysed

834

Still licensed (GB)

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Body type

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Pass rate by year of first registration

Older cars fail more often, so compare a car with others of the same age. Years with very few MOTs can show extreme pass rates, even 0% or 100%, so give more weight to years with more tests.

In detail:

First registered

2009 petrol

30 MOTs

These figures come from 30 MOT tests. That's a fairly small number of cars, so they may not be typical of these cars as a whole.

Passed first time 73%. Typical mileage 92,240 (most between 64,420 and 112,544).

2011: 100% → 2012: 88% → 2013: 81% → 2014: 78% → 2015: 82% → 2016: 88% → 2017: 68% → 2018: 79% → 2019: 87% → 2020: 91% → 2021: 83% → 2022: 65% → 2023: 62% → 2024: 81% → 2025: 73%

Most common failures

Pins and bushes: pin or bush excessively worn (6.7%)
Shock absorbers: has a serious fluid leak (6.7%)
Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm (6.7%)
Wipers: does not clear the windscreen effectively (6.7%)
Catalyst emissions: carbon monoxide content after 2nd fast idle exceeds manufacturer's specified limits (3.3%)

Where 2009 130s fail

Wheels & tyres

10.0%

Suspension & axles

10.0%

Visibility & wipers

10.0%

Exhaust, emissions & leaks

6.7%

Body, structure & corrosion

3.3%

Brakes

3.3%

Lights & electrics

3.3%

Looking at a particular car?

See its own MOT history, mileage and red flags, compared with these figures. Free.

Based on 2025 initial MOT tests in DVSA's anonymised MOT dataset (cars and light vans). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Model details: Vehicle data by VehiclesDB.