BMW 525 MOT reliability

BMW 525s passed their MOT first time 71% of the time across 11,790 tests in 2025.

Example photo of a BMW 525 — Photo: Chanokchon · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

First-time pass rate

71%

MOTs analysed

11,790

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

2016 diesel

244 MOTs

Passed first time 81%. Typical mileage 93,096 (most between 76,675 and 119,556).

2016: 100% → 2017: 100% → 2018: 96% → 2019: 88% → 2020: 90% → 2021: 89% → 2022: 82% → 2023: 81% → 2024: 84% → 2025: 81%

Most common failures

Condition: has ply or cords exposed (2.9%)
Shock absorbers: has a serious fluid leak (2.5%)
Condition: has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords (1.6%)
Malfunction indicator lamp: inoperative or indicates a malfunction (1.6%)
Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm (1.6%)

Where 2016 525s fail

Wheels & tyres

7.4%

Suspension & axles

4.9%

Exhaust, emissions & leaks

3.7%

Lights & electrics

3.3%

Brakes

2.0%

Visibility & wipers

2.0%

Seat belts & other equipment

0.4%

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.