One in five cars registered in 2008 failed their first MOT in 2011, with the Chrysler Grand Voyager at the bottom of the table, according to motoring website Honest John.
The site analysed records from the Vehicle Operator and Services Agency (Vosa) and found that in the period between October 2010 and September 2011 353,000 cars failed their first MOT.
The most common reasons were lighting and signalling, while tyres, headlight aim and issues with the driver's view of the road all caused substantial numbers of failures.
Chrysler models came bottom of the tables of mainstream (cars for which there were more than 1,000 MOT tests) and luxury cars. Among 2008-registered mainstream cars first MOTd in 2011, the Chrysler 300C came bottom with a pass rate of just 62%. Almost one in five (19%) failed on brakes, while 14% failed on lighting and signalling.
Overall, the Chrysler Grand Voyager – favoured by Alan Sugar in The Apprentice to ferry the candidates around – performed worst with a 59% pass rate among the 99 cars tested. Again, brakes were an issue for 18% while lighting and signalling problems were behind 19% of failures.
At the top of the table came the Rolls Royce Phantom with a pass rate of 93%, but for those who cannot afford the almost £200,000 price tag, the Suzuki Splash priced at about £9,000 had a pretty good success rate passing nine out of 10 MOTs.
Honest John said the Splashs that failed had done so mainly on items that could be easily fixed by an owner, such as problems with lights and windscreen wipers.
Looking at all cars MOTd in 2011, the mainstream cars most likely to pass were 2007 Aston Martin Vantages, with a pass rate of 91%. At the bottom, among those with more than 1,000 tests done were Fiat Multiplas registered in 2000, of which just 33% passed.
The Honest John website said it was "important to remember that this is not a reliability survey. JD Power and the like do a very good job of collating that kind of information. Instead, the MOT Files relies on actual data from the very cars that are currently on our roads.
"That said, it's safe to say there's a correlation between the build quality of a car and how likely it is to pass its MOT. Indeed, there are definite trends emerging."
Sales and servicing of Chrysler cars in the UK was taken over by Fiat in 2011. A spokesman for the company said: "The way a car is looked after, particularly in the early years, is vital to how well it does in the MOT."
When asked if there were any particular issues with the models involved, he said: "A lot of the failures are for things like tyres, lights and bodywork … it is much more to do with how the vehicle is maintained."
You can see the success rate for your car in different areas around the country on Honest John's MOT Files pages.
