Pass rate
64.4%
Below average — 7.8 pts behind the 72.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 146 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £28–£80
2004 Citroen C4 MOT pass rate
- 2004
- typical 108,035 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Suspension
22.9% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Which year to buy
- Best 2023 92.8% pass
- Avoid 2004 64.4% pass · this year
Across the 20 years on record, a spread of 28.4 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 49.0%
- Typical mileage
- 108k mi
The 2004 Citroen C4 MOT pass rate is 64.4% of its MOT tests — 7.8 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 22.9% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Lamps & electrics: 1.6× the national share
Lamps & electrics make up 20.1% of everything recorded on the 2004 Citroen C4, against 12.2% nationally — 7.9 points above. Suspension is still the single largest share at 22.9%, but at 21.0% nationally that one is ordinary. Walk round the car with the lights on before the test: bulbs, indicators and number-plate lamps are the cheapest failures to prevent and among the most common.
- Falls short of its own age and mileage. Like-for-like, cars this age and mileage expect about 72.2%; this one manages 64.4% — 7.8 points below. Age is a fair excuse; this is not age.
- Based on a small sample. 146 tests back this page. That is enough to publish and to index, not enough to treat the decimal places as precise — read the pattern, not the second digit.
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 Citroen C4? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2004 Citroen C4 compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.2%, so this figure is 7.8 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 49.0%. The median 2004 Citroen C4 in this dataset had covered 108,035 mi.
51% of the tests on this vehicle ran on Diesel, which passed 63.5% of the time. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 69.0% of the time, April–September 57.6%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources", noted on 10.27% of tests.
- 146 recorded tests behind this page.
- 64.4% overall pass rate, 49.0% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Citroen C4, the average is 74.7% — best year 2023 (92.8%), worst 2004 (64.4%).
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
- 146
- Typical mileage (median)
- 108,035 mi
- Make and model
- Citroen C4
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Number Plate Lamp
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Does mileage affect the C4 MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 49% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Diesel is the most common here (51% of tests).
Where the Citroen C4 is most common
Across all C4 model years on record (2004–2023): 199,734 Citroen C4 cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 504,908 tests. Birmingham (B) has the most, with 7,065 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 | Birmingham (B) | 7,065 | 79.6% |
| 2 | Sheffield (S) | 5,377 | 76.8% |
| 3 | Peterborough (PE) | 4,927 | 76.2% |
| 4 | Nottingham (NG) | 4,480 | 73.6% |
| 5 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 3,695 | 73.8% |
| 6 | Manchester (M) | 3,616 | 77.1% |
| 7 | Cardiff (CF) | 3,540 | 72.2% |
| 8 | Coventry (CV) | 3,537 | 77.0% |
| 9 | Doncaster (DN) | 3,442 | 74.1% |
| 10 | Leicester (LE) | 3,220 | 76.4% |
| 11 | Derby (DE) | 3,154 | 75.3% |
| 12 | Bristol (BS) | 2,949 | 72.1% |
| 13 | Portsmouth (PO) | 2,931 | 72.7% |
| 14 | Norwich (NR) | 2,818 | 73.5% |
| 15 | Glasgow (G) | 2,758 | 71.4% |
| 16 | Swansea (SA) | 2,631 | 72.8% |
| 17 | Edinburgh (EH) | 2,629 | 69.4% |
| 18 | Northampton (NN) | 2,582 | 73.4% |
| 19 | Preston (PR) | 2,488 | 75.5% |
| 20 | Brighton (BN) | 2,459 | 72.9% |
The twenty areas with the most Citroen C4 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 C4
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| Yorkshire | 35 | 65.7% |
| South West | 33 | 63.6% |
| South East | 25 | 64.0% |
| North West | 20 | 75.0% |
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 C4
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 C4
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 10.3% of tests
“registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources”
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 windscreen 6.8% of tests
“windscreen damaged”
Check the driver’s side of the screen within the swept area for chips and cracks; anything larger than 10mm in the driver’s central view is a fail. Most chips can be resin-repaired for far less than a new screen.
-
Check the suspension joints 6.2% of tests
“ball joint excessively worn”
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.
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 C4 through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £28–£80 — and 37% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £28–£80
- Cheapest common item: stop lamp not working
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: joints constant velocity boot split or…
- £80–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 70%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 37%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 146 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 C4, side by side
20 model years on record, from 2004 to 2023. Across them the pass rate runs from 64.4% to 92.8% — a spread of 28.4 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2004 64.4%registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2005 71.4% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2006 70.3% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2007 69.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2008 68.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2009 69.9% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2010 69.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2011 72.1% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2012 72.9% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2013 72.8% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2014 73.8% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2015 76.8% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2016 78.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2017 82.9% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2018 84.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2019 86.0% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2020 89.7% wipers does not clear the…
- 2021 86.9% wipers does not clear the…
- 2022 89.4% wipers blade defective
- 2023 92.8% ball joint excessively worn
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 Citroen C4 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
- Kia Sorento 65.6%
- Ford Galaxy 66.2%
- Vauxhall Combo 66.3%
- Renault Modus 66.3%
- Ford Ka 66.7%
- Volkswagen Beetle 66.8%
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 Citroen C4 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 543 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suspension | 125 | 22.90% | 20.98% | +1.92 |
| Brakes | 111 | 20.30% | 20.89% | −0.59 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 110 | 20.10% | 12.21% | +7.89 |
| Tyres | 47 | 8.60% | 19.76% | −11.16 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 40 | 7.30% | 5.57% | +1.73 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 28 | 5.10% | 5.52% | −0.42 |
| Visibility | 26 | 4.80% | 4.97% | −0.17 |
| Non-component advisories | 25 | 4.60% | 4.18% | +0.42 |
| Steering | 24 | 4.40% | 2.57% | +1.83 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 7 | 1.30% | 1.76% | −0.46 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 10.3% | £5–20 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 8.9% | £5–25 |
| Joints constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Body, chassis, structure | Major | 6.8% | £80–250 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 6.8% | £80–200 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 6.2% | £18–45 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 6.2% | £25–65 |
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 5.5% | £30–80 |
| Track rod end ball joint has excessive play Steering | Major | 4.8% | £18–45 |
| Linkage ball joints ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 4.1% | £18–45 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 4.1% | £3–12 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 21.2% | £45–110 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 15.8% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Play in steering rack inner joint(s) Non-component advisories | Advisory | 13.7% | £120–300 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 12.3% | £200–700 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 12.3% | £40–150 |
| Coil spring corroded so that its cross sectional area is reduced and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 11.6% | £25–65 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 8 | 75.0% | 24,334 mi |
| 30-60k | 12 | 58.3% | 49,563 mi |
| 60-90k | 27 | 66.7% | 77,187 mi |
| 90-120k | 46 | 69.6% | 105,121 mi |
| 120k+ | 52 | 57.7% | 148,904 mi |
Source: 146 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 C4 MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2004 Citroen C4?
64.4% of the 146 2004 Citroen C4 tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.2% for cars first used in 2004. First-attempt pass rate: 49.0%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2004 Citroen C4?
The three most recorded items are registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (10.27%), position lamp not working (8.90%), joints constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt (6.85%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2004 Citroen C4 MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 75.0% of the time, falling to 57.7% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2004 Citroen C4 in this dataset had covered 108,035 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2004 Citroen C4?
Diesel: 63.5% pass rate across 74 tests. Petrol: 65.3% pass rate across 72 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2004 Citroen C4 MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 69.0% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 57.6%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.