Pass rate
88.4%
Above average — 16.2 pts ahead of the 72.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 329 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £28–£69
2004 Bentley Arnage MOT pass rate
- 2004
- typical 49,953 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Brakes
32.1% of faults · 20.9% nationally
mostly worn pads and discs, corroded pipes and a handbrake that will not hold.
Part only £25–£55 for Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded. What fitting it takes →
Which year to buy
- Best 2009 94.9% pass
- Avoid 2001 87.0% pass
Across the 10 years on record, a spread of 7.9 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 87.7%
- Typical mileage
- 50k mi
The 2004 Bentley Arnage MOT pass rate is 88.4% of its MOT tests — 16.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Brakes is the biggest single reason it fails, at 32.1% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Brakes: 1.5× the national share
Brakes make up 32.1% of everything recorded on the 2004 Bentley Arnage, against 20.9% nationally — 11.2 points above. Have the discs and pads measured rather than glanced at, and ask whether the handbrake holds on a slope.
- Beats its own age and mileage. Once you allow for how old and how far these cars have been driven, the expected pass rate is 72.2% and this one manages 88.4% — 16.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 17% of this model’s typical repairs come in under £30 in parts — the failures here tend to be the kind that need a garage rather than a bulb.
Written from this page's own figures: fault shares against the national composition, the like-for-like pass rate, and the priced repair list. How these are worked out
Watching a Bentley Arnage? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2004 Bentley Arnage compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.2%, so this figure is 16.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 87.7%. The median 2004 Bentley Arnage in this dataset had covered 49,953 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 88.6% of the time, April–September 88.4%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated", noted on 3.04% of tests.
- 329 recorded tests behind this page.
- 88.4% overall pass rate, 87.7% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Bentley Arnage, the average is 89.5% — best year 2009 (94.9%), worst 2001 (87.0%).
Figures count every completed test on this vehicle-year in the dataset, including retests. See methodology for the exact definition.
This page's data
- Tests analysed
- 329
- Typical mileage (median)
- 49,953 mi
- Make and model
- Bentley Arnage
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Ball Joint
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the Arnage MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 69% so small gaps stay visible.
Where the Bentley Arnage is most common
Across all Arnage model years on record (2000–2009): 1,968 Bentley Arnage cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 3,803 tests. London (W) has the most, with 85 cars tested there. Cars are counted by the postcode area of the MOT station, so this is where they were tested, not necessarily where their owners live.
| # | Postcode area | Cars | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | London (W) | 85 | 87.4% |
| 2 | Birmingham (B) | 63 | 92.5% |
| 3 | Crawley (RH) | 52 | 90.7% |
| 4 | Ashford (TN) | 48 | 91.0% |
| 5 | Guildford (GU) | 44 | 88.8% |
| 6 | Chelmsford (CM) | 43 | 93.0% |
| 7 | Reading (RG) | 42 | 86.3% |
| 8 | Nottingham (NG) | 39 | 90.8% |
| 9 | Worcester (WR) | 39 | 89.9% |
| 10 | Leeds (LS) | 39 | 92.5% |
| 11 | Leicester (LE) | 37 | 97.3% |
| 12 | Slough (SL) | 36 | 91.5% |
| 13 | Gloucester (GL) | 33 | 84.2% |
| 14 | Milton Keynes (MK) | 32 | 91.5% |
| 15 | Maidstone (ME) | 32 | 91.4% |
| 16 | Peterborough (PE) | 31 | 85.9% |
| 17 | London (SW) | 31 | 78.1% |
| 18 | Bolton (BL) | 31 | 81.1% |
| 19 | Norwich (NR) | 30 | 84.4% |
| 20 | Hounslow (TW) | 27 | 96.4% |
The twenty areas with the most Bentley Arnage cars in the record, sorted by car count — sort the columns for a different question. Cars tested at a station whose postcode area could not be resolved are counted in the model's total but in no area, so the shares add up to slightly under 100% even across every area, and an area's cars are a subset of the model's. Pass rate is blank below 30 tests in an area, where a percentage is noise rather than a finding. How this model's pass rate varies by postcode →
Regional pass rates for the Arnage
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 106 | 92.5% |
| Yorkshire | 38 | 86.8% |
| South West | 33 | 81.8% |
| North West | 31 | 87.1% |
| East of England | 30 | 73.3% |
| West Midlands | 27 | 92.6% |
| London | 22 | 90.9% |
| Scotland | 17 | 94.1% |
Regions come from the postcode area recorded at the test station. Areas on region borders are assigned to the region with the majority of their population.
What fails a 2004 Arnage
Everything a tester recorded on this vehicle, grouped into the inspection sections that produced it. The notch on each bar is the national share, so you can see at a glance whether this car is unusual or just ordinary.
A test can record several items, so these percentages do not add up to 100%. The exact strings, with prices, are in the full DVSA record at the bottom of this page.
Before your test
Three checks worth doing on a 2004 Arnage
These are not generic tips — they are the faults recorded most often on this exact model, rewritten as things you can check yourself. All three take about ten minutes and cost nothing.
-
Check the suspension joints 3.0% of tests
“ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated”
With the car parked on level ground, rock the top of each front wheel in and out while someone watches the suspension arm. Clunks, or rubber boots split and greasy, are what testers record here.
-
Check the exhaust and emissions 1.8% of tests
“exhaust system has a major leak of exhaust gases”
Listen for a blow at idle and have someone rev it gently. Then look at the tailpipe smoke: blue is oil, white when warm is coolant, black is over-fuelling. Any of those and the emissions test is the least of it.
-
Check the lights 1.5% of tests
“malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction”
Switch everything on and walk round the car: both headlamps on dip and main, every indicator, both brake lights, reverse, fog and the two number-plate lamps. A bulb is a few pounds and a five-minute job.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
What it costs to get a 2004 Arnage through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £28–£69 — and 17% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £28–£69
- Cheapest common item: malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or…
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: rigid brake pipes excessively corroded
- £80–£180
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 80%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 17%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 329 MOT tests on this vehicle. They exclude diagnostics, retest fees and garage labour where the part is a DIY fit, and they are not figures from the DVSA dataset. Older and higher-mileage examples cost more than the average. How these estimates are built → · All MOT repair costs → · Cheapest cars to put through a test →
Every year of the Arnage, side by side
10 model years on record, from 2000 to 2009. Across them the pass rate runs from 87.0% to 94.9% — a spread of 7.9 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 89.7% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2001 87.0% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2002 89.2% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2003 90.6% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2004 88.4%ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2005 91.9% rbt (sp) efficiency below…
- 2006 90.8% rbt (sp) efficiency below…
- 2007 87.1% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2008 91.7% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2009 94.9% has a bulge, caused by separation…
Colour is the pass rate on a fixed scale, so a block means the same thing on any model. Each year links to its own page with the full fault breakdown.
Compare the 2004 Bentley Arnage with another year
The raw pass rate mostly measures age. The year comparison adds the like-for-like figure, the mileage bands and the repair bill.
Other 2004 cars with a similar record
- BMW M3 88.2%
- Porsche 911 87.2%
- Mercedes-Benz Sl 86.7%
- Honda S2000 86.7%
- Mercedes-Benz S-Class 83.1%
- Subaru Impreza 82.2%
Closest pass rates among 2004 cars with at least 2,000 tests, so a small sample cannot flatter itself into the list. See the full rankings: best and worst MOT pass rates.
The full DVSA record for the 2004 Bentley Arnage 10 failure items · 6 advisories · 10 inspection categories · mileage brackets · all of it in the page, none of it above the fold
Every inspection category
Shares of the 314 individual items recorded on this vehicle, and the same share across all cars nationally. A single test can record several items, so a row is not a percentage of tests.
| Category | Items | This car | Nationally | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brakes | 103 | 32.10% | 20.89% | +11.21 |
| Suspension | 75 | 23.40% | 20.98% | +2.42 |
| Tyres | 35 | 10.90% | 19.76% | −8.86 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 24 | 7.50% | 5.52% | +1.98 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 20 | 6.20% | 12.21% | −6.01 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 17 | 5.30% | 5.57% | −0.27 |
| Steering | 16 | 5.00% | 2.57% | +2.43 |
| Non-component advisories | 12 | 3.70% | 4.18% | −0.48 |
| Visibility | 6 | 1.90% | 4.97% | −3.07 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 6 | 1.90% | 0.82% | +1.08 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 3.0% | £18–45 |
| Exhaust system has a major leak of exhaust gases Body, chassis, structure | Major | 1.8% | £45–120 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 1.5% | £3–12 |
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Major | 1.5% | £80–180 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 1.2% | £18–45 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 1.2% | £18–45 |
| Anti-lock braking system warning lamp indicates an ABS fault Brakes | Major | 0.91% | £3–15 |
| Ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 0.91% | £18–45 |
| Brake discs significantly and obviously worn Brakes | Major | 0.91% | £45–110 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 0.91% | £25–65 |
Severity is as recorded: Major and Dangerous fail the test outright; Minor and Advisory do not. Costs are estimates from typical UK parts prices — see how they are built.
What testers noted without failing the car
Advisories are the early warnings — the same parts a year or two before they fail. Reading them is how you tell a car that has been maintained from one that has been patched.
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Advisory | 9.4% | £80–180 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 8.8% | £45–110 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 4.0% | £45–95 |
| Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak Suspension | Advisory | 4.0% | £30–75 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 3.3% | £40–150 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 2.7% | £45–95 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 49 | 85.7% | 19,649 mi |
| 30-60k | 160 | 90.0% | 44,841 mi |
| 60-90k | 88 | 89.8% | 72,159 mi |
| 90-120k | 22 | 77.3% | 99,436 mi |
| 120k+ | 9 | 88.9% | 132,057 mi |
Source: 329 recorded tests on this vehicle-year. Every row above is recomputed from the same DVSA extract as the rest of the page — see the methodology.
2004 Arnage MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2004 Bentley Arnage?
88.4% of the 329 2004 Bentley Arnage tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.2% for cars first used in 2004. First-attempt pass rate: 87.7%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2004 Bentley Arnage?
The three most recorded items are ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated (3.04%), exhaust system has a major leak of exhaust gases (1.82%), malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction (1.52%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2004 Bentley Arnage MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 85.7% of the time, falling to 88.9% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2004 Bentley Arnage in this dataset had covered 49,953 mi.
Does the season affect the 2004 Bentley Arnage MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 88.6% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 88.4%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.