How long do cars last in the UK? The figures

We found no current official figure for the age at which UK cars are scrapped. A page that gives one number is using another source, so check where it comes from.

The last published pattern we found is from the RAC Foundation, a transport research body. Its report, dated October 2008, used figures from SMMT, the car industry's trade body, for 1997 and 2007, covering Great Britain^[4]. It found almost no scrapping in a car's first nine years, apart from accident write-offs.

Scrapping peaked at around year 14, when about 12% of the original registrations were scrapped. Half of cars were still on the road at 14 years, and more than 95% had gone by year 20.

That report is 18 years old. It describes the cars of its time, and it counted scrapping, not the register. So it can't be set beside the figures later on this page.

Scrap-car companies publish their own numbers. One of them, Car.co.uk, gives an average age of 16.6 years for the cars it assessed for scrapping in 2025^[5]. That comes from 461,991 scrap enquiries and collections. Its most common bracket is 15 to 20 years. Those are one company's records, not official figures.

For cars first registered in 2014, about 9 in 10 cars (89.5%) were still registered at the end of 2025. That's 11 years on, counted from the year of first use.

The table gives the same measure from the year of first use up to 11 years later. Most cars stay on the register for at least their first ten years. Of cars first registered in 2014 and 2015, 91.6% were still registered at year 10.

Don't read the table as one group of cars followed through time. Each row uses a different set of first-registration years, shown in the last column. A figure can also rise from one row to the next: 95.4% at 3 years, then 96.3% at 4. A car can drop off the register for a while and come back.

The 2020 to 2022 first-registration years sit a little lower at three years, which pulls that row down. The figures can't say why those years sit lower.

The table above stops at 11 years. To go further, we added up the same DfT figures ourselves. We took the cars on the register at the end of 2014, by year first used. Then we counted how many were still there at the end of 2025. It's our own calculation, not a table DfT publishes.

The share falls with age. Take cars first used in 2008 and on the register at the end of 2014. About half of cars (50.5%) were still registered at 17. Now take cars first used in 2005 and on the register at the end of 2014. About 3 in 10 cars (29.5%) were still registered at 20.

By 21, it was about 1 in 4 cars (25.3%). For the oldest groups the fall stops: 20.9% for cars first used in 2002, 20.3% for 2001 and 21.4% for 2000.

The figures can't say why. Cars that old may be a different mix, with more classics, imports and cars brought back into use. So the chart ends at 2000, and we don't read the rise as older cars lasting longer.

These are shares of the cars still on the register at the end of 2014. Cars that had already gone before then aren't counted. So the figure for age 20 isn't the share of all the cars first registered in 2005.

Registered doesn't mean driven. A car with a SORN stays on the register but is kept off the road. At the end of 2025, about 1 in 10 cars (9.6%) first used in 2010 were declared off the road. Those cars were 15 years old.

The share climbs with age. It reaches about 1 in 6 cars (17.6%) at 17 and about half of cars (45.2%) at 21. For cars first used in 1995, now 30, it is about 4 in 5 cars (82.2%).

The MOT is the yearly check that a car is safe and fit for the road. A SORN spell is one reason for a gap in an MOT record. So a long spell with no MOT can simply mean the car was off the road.

If an older car has a gap, ask the seller whether it was off the road, and when. Our guide to gaps in MOT history covers the other reasons.

The average age of cars on the road is a different question from how long a car lasts. DfT counts licensed cars, meaning cars that are taxed, by the number of years since they were first used.

SMMT, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, is the car industry's trade body. It puts the average age of cars in 2025 at 9.7 years, up from 9.5 in 2024. It says a record 45.7% of cars were over 10 years old, against 43.4% in 2024^[3].

SMMT, the car industry's trade body, counts 36,676,185 cars on the road in 2025^[3]. The DfT count on this page is for the end of 2024 and leaves out cars with a SORN. So the two totals aren't the same measure. SMMT says motorists are holding on to their cars for longer, amid cost of living pressures and economic uncertainty.

The average age isn't how long a car lasts. It's the age of the cars that exist today, new ones included. So it isn't the age at which cars leave the road, and shouldn't be read as one.

No official source gives a mileage at which cars wear out. What our MOT figures show is how many miles vehicles of each age had on their latest reading in 2025.

The median is the middle reading: half the vehicles had done fewer miles and half had done more. The middle half leaves out the quarter with the fewest miles and the quarter with the most.

Spread over a vehicle's life, the median is roughly 7,700 miles a year at age 10 and 5,100 at age 20. So older vehicles have usually averaged fewer miles a year.

These are vehicles still being tested in 2025. Those that left the road earlier aren't counted, and a different mix is tested at each age. The figures can't say why the median is 101,500 miles at age 20 and 77,000 at 25 and over.

For the middle half at every age, see normal mileage for age.

The records show how long cars stay registered. They don't show how well a car was made, how well it was looked after, or why its owner kept it. Staying registered is not a measure of how durable a car is.

People scrap cars for a mix of reasons, and no source we found gives today's shares. These are the reasons named in the sources we found:

• The cost of repair against the cost of replacing the car, and its mileage. The RAC Foundation's 2008 report says these are what the classic research looks at^[4].
• An accident. A study for the government covering 1999 to 2002, quoted in that report, suggested that under 10% of scrapping followed an accident.
• A scrap-car service lists the reasons it sees today^[5]. They include failed MOTs, costly repairs, rust, engine, gearbox or electrical failure, flood damage, low-emission-zone pressure and high mileage. It gives no shares.

A car's age is one clue. Its own record, from test to test, tells you more about the car in front of you.

Every figure on this page describes a group of cars. None of them says how much life is left in the one you're looking at.

What can help is the car's own record. The free GOV.UK service shows each test, its result and the mileage, for cars back to 2005 (Northern Ireland tests from 2017)^[7]. Here is what to look for on an older car.

Older vehicles usually have more faults recorded at their MOTs, more often on suspension and lights. That comes from MOT Wise analysis of DVSA MOT results, 2025. It is a pattern across many vehicles, covered in MOT failure rate by age. Our guide to rust and the MOT explains where rust fails a car and what testers look for.

For one make and model, see the figures on our model pages. Age alone is no reason to rule a car in or out. You decide, and the record is the best place to start.