From What Age Does Retest Risk Really Increase?

“At what mileage does a used car become risky?” It’s one of the most common questions before buying a used car — and most answers online rely on rules of thumb (“multiply the age by 12,000 or 13,000 km”) rather than an actual measurement of risk. Two countries do publish this data precisely, age band by age band, though: the UK (DVSA, MOT tests) and the Netherlands (RDW, APK inspection).

What the official data shows

Here is the actual national failure rate, by age band, in both countries — the same age boundaries are used on both sides, which makes a direct comparison possible:

Age band	UK (DVSA)	Netherlands (RDW)
0-3 years	12.5%	23.1%*
3-5 years	14.7%	23.2%
5-8 years	20.5%	26.5%
8-11 years	29.9%	32.2%
11-15 years	38.7%	39.7%
15 years and over	40.8%	47.5%

* The 0-3 year band in the Netherlands should be read with caution. The Dutch APK inspection only becomes mandatory from a vehicle’s 4th year, so this band rests on just 47,800 tests (imported vehicles, voluntary inspections…), against more than a million tests for each of the following bands. Every other band, on both sides, rests on several million tests (34.8 million in total in the UK, 12.8 million in the Netherlands).

Where the real tipping point sits

The two curves tell the same story up to a point, then diverge.

What both countries share: risk climbs sharply from around 8 years. Between the 5-8 year band and the 8-11 year band, the UK failure rate jumps by +9.3 points — the largest single jump in the whole DVSA series. In the Netherlands, that same transition adds +5.7 points, and the next jump (8-11 → 11-15 years, +7.5 points) is nearly as steep. In both countries, a car aged 8 to 11 years shows a failure rate well over double that of a car under 5 years old.

What diverges: past 11-15 years, the UK curve flattens almost completely (only +2.1 points up to 15 years and over, against +8.8 points on the previous step) — as if most of the genuinely fragile vehicles had already left the DVSA-tracked fleet by that stage. The Dutch curve, on the other hand, keeps climbing sharply over that same step (+7.8 points, its largest jump): risk doesn’t plateau the same way in the Netherlands.

So there isn’t a single “magic age” identical across both datasets — but there is a consistent signal: it’s around 8 years that the failure rate durably leaves the low zone and enters a markedly higher-risk zone, in both countries. What the two curves don’t settle, however, is whether that risk keeps climbing indefinitely past 15 years (the Dutch trend) or eventually levels off (the UK trend).

Why no French data here

The French roadworthiness data (UTAC-OTC) used on this site is aggregated over a model’s entire lifespan, without a breakdown by age band — unlike the UK and the Netherlands, which publish this dimension. That’s why this article relies on international data rather than French data. Detail on the methodology page (in French).

See the detail by generation

On the UK and Netherlands pages (both in French), each tracked generation’s page shows its own curve by age band, compared against the matching national average.

Source data: DVSA MOT (UK, Open Government Licence v3.0), RDW APK (Netherlands, CC0 licence). Full methodology on the methodology page (in French).