Pass rate
89.2%
Above average — 1.3 pts ahead of the 87.9% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 519 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £24–£57
2018 BMW 218D MOT pass rate
- 2018
- 2 trims combined
- typical 49,774 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Tyres
41.3% of faults · 19.8% nationally
mostly tread below the limit, cuts and sidewall bulges.
Part only £55–£85 for Tread depth below 1.6 mm. What fitting it takes →
Which year to buy
- Best 2022 93.3% pass
- Avoid 2018 89.2% pass · this year
Across the 5 years on record, a spread of 4.1 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 88.0%
- Typical mileage
- 50k mi
The 2018 BMW 218D MOT pass rate is 89.2% of its MOT tests — 1.3 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 41.3% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 2.1× the national share
Tyres make up 41.3% of everything recorded on the 2018 BMW 218d, against 19.8% nationally — 21.5 points above. Check all four tyres yourself, including the inner shoulders, and look at the date stamp — a tyre can pass on tread and still be six years old.
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 BMW 218D? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every BMW 218D first registered in 2018 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2018 BMW 218D compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 87.9%, so this figure is 1.3 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 88.0%. The median 2018 BMW 218D in this dataset had covered 49,774 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 87.5% of the time, April–September 90.9%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction", noted on 2.89% of tests.
- 519 recorded tests behind this page.
- 89.2% overall pass rate, 88.0% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the BMW 218D, the average is 89.9% — best year 2022 (93.3%), worst 2018 (89.2%).
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
- 519
- Typical mileage (median)
- 49,774 mi
- Make and model
- BMW 218D
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Indicator Bulb
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the 218D MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 76% so small gaps stay visible.
Where the BMW 218D is most common
Across all 218D model years on record (2018–2022): 3,155 BMW 218D cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 5,455 tests. Glasgow (G) has the most, with 103 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 | Glasgow (G) | 103 | 90.2% |
| 2 | Birmingham (B) | 102 | 88.5% |
| 3 | Sheffield (S) | 71 | 92.1% |
| 4 | Warrington (WA) | 69 | 88.8% |
| 5 | Peterborough (PE) | 69 | 88.9% |
| 6 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 64 | 91.8% |
| 7 | Nottingham (NG) | 63 | 84.7% |
| 8 | Manchester (M) | 59 | 87.2% |
| 9 | Liverpool (L) | 57 | 91.0% |
| 10 | Derby (DE) | 54 | 88.8% |
| 11 | Coventry (CV) | 54 | 93.9% |
| 12 | Preston (PR) | 51 | 86.9% |
| 13 | Northampton (NN) | 50 | 89.0% |
| 14 | Hamilton (ML) | 49 | 87.1% |
| 15 | Doncaster (DN) | 48 | 94.6% |
| 16 | Edinburgh (EH) | 47 | 85.4% |
| 17 | Wakefield (WF) | 47 | 92.1% |
| 18 | Blackburn (BB) | 46 | 95.2% |
| 19 | Bristol (BS) | 45 | 89.5% |
| 20 | Leeds (LS) | 40 | 89.4% |
The twenty areas with the most BMW 218D 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 218D
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 115 | 89.6% |
| East of England | 86 | 88.4% |
| North West | 60 | 85.0% |
| London | 56 | 96.4% |
| West Midlands | 47 | 91.5% |
| Scotland | 42 | 85.7% |
| South West | 42 | 83.3% |
| East Midlands | 29 | 89.7% |
| Yorkshire | 21 | 85.7% |
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 2018 218D
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 2018 218D
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 lights 2.9% 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.
-
Check the tyre tread 1.5% of tests
“tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm”
Check all four tyres cold, including the inner shoulder where wear hides — 1.6mm across the central three-quarters is the legal limit, and most testers fail at 1.6mm without argument.
-
Check the brakes 0.8% of tests
“brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick”
Look through the spokes of each wheel at the pad — less than 3mm of friction material, or a lip on the disc edge, is the usual failure. Check the handbrake holds on a slope with a few clicks, not at the top of its travel.
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 2018 218D through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £24–£57 — and 38% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £24–£57
- Cheapest common item: malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or…
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: has a cut in excess of the requirements deep…
- £45–£95
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 70%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 38%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 519 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 218D, side by side
5 model years on record, from 2018 to 2022. Across them the pass rate runs from 89.2% to 93.3% — a spread of 4.1 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2018 89.2%malfunction indicator lamp…
- 2019 89.3% malfunction indicator lamp…
- 2020 89.3% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2021 89.4% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2022 93.3% has a cut in excess of the…
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 2018 BMW 218D 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 2018 cars with a similar record
- Suzuki Ignis 89.2%
- Alfa Romeo Stelvio 89.2%
- Skoda Octavia 89.3%
- Peugeot 108 89.3%
- Volkswagen Sharan 89.3%
- Jaguar F-Pace 89.1%
Closest pass rates among 2018 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 2018 BMW 218D 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 411 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tyres | 172 | 41.30% | 19.76% | +21.54 |
| Brakes | 78 | 18.80% | 20.89% | −2.09 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 44 | 10.60% | 12.21% | −1.61 |
| Suspension | 39 | 9.40% | 20.98% | −11.58 |
| Non-component advisories | 26 | 6.20% | 4.18% | +2.02 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 20 | 4.80% | 5.52% | −0.72 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 10 | 2.40% | 0.82% | +1.58 |
| Visibility | 9 | 2.20% | 4.97% | −2.77 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 9 | 2.20% | 1.76% | +0.44 |
| Steering | 4 | 1.00% | 2.57% | −1.57 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 2.9% | £3–12 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 1.5% | £45–95 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 1.5% | £45–95 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 0.96% | £45–95 |
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.96% | £30–80 |
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 0.96% | £30–80 |
| Headlamp aim too high Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.96% | £30–80 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Rectified | 0.96% | £3–12 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.96% | £3–12 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 0.77% | £18–45 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 16.8% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 5.8% | £18–45 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 5.4% | £40–150 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 4.6% | £45–110 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 3.9% | £45–95 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Advisory | 3.1% | £45–95 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 72 | 97.2% | 23,217 mi |
| 30-60k | 280 | 89.3% | 44,829 mi |
| 60-90k | 138 | 86.2% | 70,400 mi |
| 90-120k | 26 | 84.6% | 102,138 mi |
| 120k+ | 2 | 100.0% | 127,431 mi |
Source: 519 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.
2018 218D MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2018 BMW 218D?
89.2% of the 519 2018 BMW 218D tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 87.9% for cars first used in 2018. First-attempt pass rate: 88.0%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2018 BMW 218D?
The three most recorded items are malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction (2.89%), has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords (1.54%), tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm (1.54%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2018 BMW 218D MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 97.2% of the time, falling to 100.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2018 BMW 218D in this dataset had covered 49,774 mi.
Does the season affect the 2018 BMW 218D MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 87.5% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 90.9%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.