About motfailcode.uk
motfailcode.ukis a free, mobile-first decoder for the codes that appear on a UK MOT failure certificate. We take the section.subsection .subject.defect notation that comes off the tester’s VT30, look it up in the DVSA MOT Inspection Manual, and present a plain-English explanation alongside its severity tier (Minor / Major / Dangerous / Advisory) and what it means for repair urgency.
Why this site exists
The DVSA publishes the inspection manual for transparency, but it is long, structured for testers, and not searchable on a phone. Most car owners hand back the certificate to the garage without ever understanding what was wrong. We think anyone holding a VT30 deserves a 30-second answer in plain English.
How we keep it current
The DVSA MOT Inspection Manual is revised annually (typically in May). We track the canonical gov.uk publication and re-verify every code in our corpus against the current revision. The current verified revision is 1 April 2026. See our methodology for the full process and sources for the citation manifest.
Who we are
motfailcode.uk is built by Desymphony, which trades as Desymphony EOOD for legal and data-controller purposes (see Terms and Privacy). We are not affiliated with DVSA, the Department for Transport, or HM Government. References to the DVSA manual are factual citations under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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What we don’t do
- We don’t book repairs. Other UK sites (BookMyGarage, Kwik Fit, RAC) handle that funnel; we just decode.
- We don’t generate appeal letters. Vehicle test appeals go through the DVSA process. (Parking notices are a separate concern — see our sibling site pcnappeal.uk for that.)
- We don’t quote repair costs. Cost ranges depend on vehicle, garage, and region, and any number we published would be a guess. Get a quote from a local garage.
- We don’t cover Northern Ireland yet. NI MOT is administered by the DVA under a separate code regime. We may add DVA support in v1.1.