MOT tyre advisories by registration

How tyre wear and damage wording appears on MOT History, how we map it to wheel areas, and what the free preview and buyer report show.

Enter vehicle registration — run a check for your plate (interactive form loads with the app).

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Illustrative car for inspection areas

Tyre-related MOT notes are among the most common advisories on used cars. Testers describe tread wear, damage, or inflation issues in free text. Car Buyer Check classifies that wording into tyre wear versus tyre damage families and maps it to a wheel position when the record allows — so you can see whether the file keeps mentioning the nearside rear, for example, rather than treating every tyre line as one vague warning.

Wear, damage, and location on the file

The engine separates wear-type wording from damage-type wording. They are not merged into a single generic “tyre problem” if the record supports a finer reading. Location comes from the MOT text and our mapping rules: nearside/offside and front/rear where identifiable. If the feed cannot place a line, the finding may sit in an unmapped area with a clear reason — we do not guess a corner.

Repeated similar wear wording on the same wheel area across tests is a recurring pattern, not this page’s focus. Wording that stops on the following MOT is covered under disappearing advisories. Here we focus on tyre lines themselves and how they surface on your registration check.

What you get from a registration check

Use the form above with the seller’s plate. The free snapshot shows identity and licensing fields that were returned. We do not claim they are accurate. The free preview then shows how many inspection areas are marked for this car, including tyres and wheels when tyre wording triggered findings, plus buyer position and a lead seller question.

  • Open the buyer report for verbatim MOT quotes on tyre lines, the dated timeline with mileage, and pattern labels (including recurrence or disappearance when they apply to tyre families).
  • Use the 3D or 2D inspection model to open the tyre area that matches the mapped location.
  • Copy seller questions tied to the tyre finding — we do not supply tread depth gauges or legal limit tables as fact.

Limits you should keep in mind

An advisory on a past MOT is historical. Tread can change after the test. A pass with no tyre advisory does not guarantee tyres are legal today. Car Buyer Check does not measure tyres remotely and does not publish manufacturer reliability scores.

At the viewing, check tread, sidewalls, and inflation yourself. Use MOT tyre wording to know what the file already questioned — then verify on the car.

Official sources

Does Car Buyer Check measure tread depth from the registration?

No. We show what testers wrote on past MOT tests and how our rules classify and locate that wording. Physical tread must be checked in person.

Why are wear and damage treated as different families?

The engine uses separate defect-family keys so a wear note on one test is not treated as the same pattern as damage wording on another unless the rules match them. That keeps recurrence honest when similar wear keeps appearing on one wheel area.

Can a tyre advisory appear on a passed MOT?

Yes. Advisories can be recorded when the car still passes the statutory test. The result line and the advisory lines are separate facts on the same date.

What if the MOT mentions tyres but not which wheel?

Some lines lack a clear position. The report may show an unmapped tyre finding rather than assigning the wrong corner.

How is this different from the recurring advisories guide?

The recurring guide explains repeat wording across dates. This page is about tyre-specific classification and locations on a single registration’s MOT file.

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