Most drivers treat their MOT certificate as a one-year pass and forget about it until the reminder arrives eleven months later. The advisory notes section — that list of items the tester flagged but did not fail you on — gets glanced at, possibly photographed, and then largely ignored.
This is the most expensive habit in car ownership.
Those advisory notes are not bureaucratic filler. They are a mechanic’s formal record of exactly what is going to fail your MOT test next year if you do nothing about it. Every advisory that appeared this year and goes unaddressed is a guaranteed failure waiting to be written on next year’s certificate. And the repair that costs £80 today becomes the emergency repair that costs £180 under pressure when the certificate expires and you cannot drive legally until it is fixed.
Understanding your advisory notes and acting on them systematically is, without question, the single most effective strategy for passing your MOT first time, every time.
What an Advisory Actually Means — and What It Does Not
An advisory is issued when the tester finds a component that has passed the minimum legal standard but is showing wear or deterioration. The component is not illegal yet. It is approaching the threshold at which it would become illegal, and the tester is formally recording that fact.
Common advisories include tyres with tread between 2mm and 1.6mm (legal minimum), brake pads that are thinning but not below minimum thickness, minor corrosion on the underside of the vehicle, a windscreen chip that falls just outside Zone A, and shock absorbers beginning to show seeping.
An advisory does not mean your car is unsafe to drive today. It means a competent professional looked at a specific component and concluded that it is on a trajectory toward failure. Advisories legally allow you to drive your car for the full 12-month period. But the law also requires your car to be roadworthy at all times — not just on test day. If a component that received an advisory deteriorates into a dangerous condition, you could face prosecution under Section 40a of the Road Traffic Act 1988, with fines up to £2,500 and three penalty points.
The practical message: advisories are a pass, not a permission to ignore.
How to Read Your Advisory Notes Strategically
When you next receive an advisory list, do not just file it away. Read it once carefully and divide the items into three categories.
Fix within three months. Any advisory relating to brakes, tyres, or steering should be treated as urgent regardless of how the advisory is worded. Brake pads described as “wearing thin” can deteriorate to metal-on-metal contact in 500 miles of normal driving. Tyres described as “worn close to legal limit” can become below-legal-tread after a wet month of urban driving. At Sanu Motors in Bromley, we recommend addressing brake and tyre advisories within the first quarter of the new MOT year, not the last.
Fix at your next service. Advisories relating to minor corrosion, slightly degraded wiper blades, exhaust components beginning to corrode, or worn suspension bushes that are not yet causing handling issues can usually be scheduled into your next routine service. These are genuine wear items that benefit from being replaced alongside other service work — which saves on separate call-out and labour time. Combining them with a full car service at Sanu Motors is the most cost-efficient approach.
Monitor and reassess at six months. Some advisories describe genuinely slow-moving deterioration — minor surface corrosion on a subframe, a ball joint with minimal play, an oil seal showing early signs of weeping. These warrant a mid-year check at around six months to confirm they have not deteriorated faster than expected. If they have worsened materially, move them into the “fix soon” category.
The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Advisories
The financial case for acting on advisories early is straightforward and consistent.
A tyre advisory describing tread at 2.1mm costs £80 to £120 to resolve — one new tyre, fitted during a convenient booked appointment. The same tyre, if allowed to wear below 1.6mm and then fail the MOT, costs the same tyre price plus a retest fee of up to £27.43, plus whatever disruption and time the failed test creates.
Brake pad advisories follow the same pattern. Pads described as “wearing thin” at this year’s test will be replaced for £80 to £150 per axle as a planned repair. If they deteriorate to the point of causing brake performance concerns — pulling under braking, grinding — the cost rises to include disc replacement alongside the pads, because metal-on-metal contact damages the disc surface. What was an £100 advisory item becomes a £250 repair.
The most dramatic examples involve suspension. A ball joint advisory noting “slight play” — fixed now at £80 to £150 — left for twelve months can develop into significant play that causes a dangerous defect classification, the component needs replacing under time pressure, and the associated geometry may need correcting too. A £100 planned repair becomes a £350 emergency job.
The MOT History Check You Should Do Right Now
Every MOT result since 2005 is publicly available on the Gov.uk MOT history checker using only your registration number. This is one of the most useful and underused tools available to UK drivers.
Pull up your car’s MOT history and look at the advisory notes across the last three years. Any advisory that has appeared more than once is telling you something important: the issue has been present, has been noted, and has not been fully resolved. Repeat advisories — “brake discs corroded,” appearing on three consecutive certificates — indicate either that repairs were not carried out or that the underlying conditions causing the issue have not been addressed.
This matters enormously if you are buying a used car. A vehicle with clean MOT certificates but a history of repeated identical advisories is showing you a maintenance pattern before you even start the engine. The advisories are the story the certificates do not fully tell.
At Sanu Motors, when customers bring us a car for a pre-purchase inspection, we always pull the MOT history alongside our physical inspection. The combination of what the vehicle looks like today and what testers have been noting for the past three years gives a far more complete picture of the car’s true condition than either source alone.
Why the Day After Your MOT Pass Is the Right Time to Plan
The timing instinct for most drivers is to think about the MOT in the month before it expires. The correct timing is actually the month after it passes.
When you pass your MOT — with or without advisories — you have twelve full months before the next test. That is twelve months in which to address advisories without time pressure, to schedule repairs at convenient intervals, to shop around for the best prices on parts, and to spread costs across the year rather than absorbing them all in the same month the certificate renews.
An advisory addressed in month two of a new MOT year is cheaper, better planned, and less disruptive than the same advisory addressed in month eleven. The component is less worn, the repair is simpler, and you are not making decisions under the pressure of an approaching legal deadline.
The car diagnostics service at Sanu Motors is frequently used by customers in this proactive mode — using the diagnostic scan to understand the full picture of their vehicle’s condition shortly after passing an MOT, so they can plan maintenance across the year with complete information rather than waiting for a warning light to prompt action.
A Simple System That Works
Here is the practical system for using your MOT advisory notes to guarantee a first-time pass next year.
On the day you pass your MOT, read every advisory carefully and write each one against a target action month. Safety-critical items — brakes, tyres, steering — get months one to three. Service items get scheduled into your next service visit. Slow-moving items get a mid-year checkpoint.
At six months, pull your advisory list again and reassess each item. Have any deteriorated faster than expected? If so, move the action forward.
At ten months, book your next MOT test and your pre-test inspection at the same time. The pre-inspection catches anything new that has developed during the year, confirms that all advisory items were properly addressed, and ensures the car arrives at the test in the best possible condition.
This approach turns the MOT from an annual event to be survived into a continuous maintenance process with a guaranteed outcome. Booking your MOT in Bromley at Sanu Motors includes our honest advisory review — we do not just record what we find, we explain what each advisory means for the next twelve months so you leave with a clear plan, not just a piece of paper.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to fix advisory notes by law?
No — advisories are not legally enforceable in the way that failures are. Your car has passed and can be driven legally. However, if an advisory item deteriorates to the point of becoming a dangerous defect while on the road, you can be prosecuted for driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition regardless of when it last passed its MOT.
Can I sell my car with advisory notes on the certificate?
Yes, legally. However, MOT history is publicly visible to any buyer using the Gov.uk checker, and a pattern of repeated or unaddressed advisories can reduce your car’s value and give buyers grounds to negotiate. Addressing advisories before selling demonstrates good ownership history.
How do I know if an advisory has gotten worse since the MOT?
The most reliable method is a mid-year inspection at a trusted garage. For brake and tyre advisories, you can also check yourself — the 20p tyre tread test gives you a current reading, and brake pedal feel gives a rough indication of brake condition. Any change in feel, noise, or handling warrants professional assessment.
Charlie is a senior mechanic and MOT tester at Sanu Motors, Bromley, with over 15 years of experience in vehicle testing, repair, and diagnostics. Sanu Motors offers MOT testing, pre-MOT inspections, full car servicing, DPF cleaning, brake repair, engine diagnostics, and mobile mechanic services from 76A College Road, Bromley, BR1 3PE. Call 07551 021029 or visit sanumotors.com to book.