Pass rate
Around average — 1.7 pts behind the 80.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 454,085 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£57
Pass rate
Around average — 1.7 pts behind the 80.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 454,085 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £22–£57
Most common fault
Suspension
27.7% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Which year to buy
Across the 24 years on record, a spread of 26.3 points. See every year →
The 2014 Ford Fiesta MOT pass rate is 78.5% of its MOT tests — 1.7 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 27.7% of what testers record.
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Ford Fiesta does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Suspension accounts for 27.7% of everything recorded on the 2014 Ford Fiesta, against 21.0% nationally — 6.7 points above. Ask for the front and rear suspension to be checked on a ramp before you buy — worn bushes and broken springs are cheap to look at and expensive to discover at test time.
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 Ford Fiesta? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Ford Fiesta first registered in 2014 is combined here — 3 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
Cars of this age and mileage average 80.2%, so this figure is 1.7 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 73.0%. The median 2014 Ford Fiesta in this dataset had covered 67,171 mi.
The most common fuel recorded here is Petrol — 87% of tests, with a 79.4% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 78.4% of the time, April–September 78.6%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Ball joint excessively worn", noted on 5.20% of tests.
Figures count every completed test on this vehicle-year in the dataset, including retests. See methodology for the exact definition.
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Ball Joint
Usually a DIY or independent-garage job.
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 62% so small gaps stay visible.
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (87% of tests).
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 79,997 | 81.7% |
| North West | 56,597 | 77.9% |
| East of England | 53,174 | 81.1% |
| Yorkshire | 44,462 | 76.8% |
| West Midlands | 44,437 | 79.5% |
| South West | 43,449 | 77.6% |
| Scotland | 38,399 | 71.9% |
| East Midlands | 33,283 | 78.1% |
| Wales | 28,368 | 76.1% |
| North East | 19,138 | 75.8% |
| London | 12,757 | 85.9% |
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.
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
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 5.2% 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.
Check the lights 3.8% of tests
“stop lamp not working”
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 1.6% 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.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £22–£57 — and 36% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 454,085 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 →
24 model years on record, from 2000 to 2023. Across them the pass rate runs from 68.3% to 94.6% — a spread of 26.3 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
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.
The raw pass rate mostly measures age. The year comparison adds the like-for-like figure, the mileage bands and the repair bill.
Closest pass rates among 2014 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.
Shares of the 770,777 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 | 216,411 | 27.70% | 20.98% | +6.72 |
| Tyres | 173,377 | 22.20% | 19.76% | +2.44 |
| Brakes | 115,405 | 14.80% | 20.89% | −6.09 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 96,391 | 12.30% | 12.21% | +0.09 |
| Non-component advisories | 34,049 | 4.40% | 4.18% | +0.22 |
| Steering | 31,170 | 4.00% | 2.57% | +1.43 |
| Visibility | 30,330 | 3.90% | 4.97% | −1.07 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 30,290 | 3.90% | 5.52% | −1.62 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 28,919 | 3.70% | 5.57% | −1.87 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 14,435 | 1.80% | 1.76% | +0.04 |
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 5.2% | £18–45 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 3.8% | £3–12 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 2.8% | £3–12 |
| Track rod end ball joint has excessive play Steering | Major | 2.7% | £18–45 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 1.6% | £80–200 |
| Headlamp not working on dipped beam Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.5% | £5–25 |
| Tyre pressure monitoring system malfunctioning or obviously inoperative Tyres | Major | 1.3% | £45–95 |
| Coil spring fractured or broken Suspension | Major | 1.3% | £25–65 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 1.3% | £45–95 |
| Swivel pins and bushes swivel pin and/or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 1.3% | £40–150 |
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.
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 | 17.5% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 10.2% | £45–95 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 8.8% | £45–110 |
| Coil spring corroded so that its cross sectional area is reduced and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 7.7% | £25–65 |
| Swivel pins and bushes swivel pin and/or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 7.1% | £40–150 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 6.2% | £18–45 |
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 30,507 | 91.5% | 22,300 mi |
| 30-60k | 149,454 | 83.0% | 46,883 mi |
| 60-90k | 172,990 | 76.1% | 74,033 mi |
| 90-120k | 73,758 | 72.4% | 101,845 mi |
| 120k+ | 25,178 | 70.9% | 142,450 mi |
Source: 454,085 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.
78.5% of the 454,085 2014 Ford Fiesta tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 80.2% for cars first used in 2014. First-attempt pass rate: 73.0%.
The three most recorded items are ball joint excessively worn (5.20%), stop lamp not working (3.75%), stop lamp not working (2.80%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 91.5% of the time, falling to 70.9% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2014 Ford Fiesta in this dataset had covered 67,171 mi.
Petrol: 79.4% pass rate across 393,220 tests. Diesel: 72.9% pass rate across 60,865 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 78.4% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 78.6%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.