Pass rate
75.9%
Around average — 10.1 pts behind the 86.0% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 224 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £43–£130
2017 Ford Journey MOT pass rate
- 2017
- typical 185,640 mi
Most common fault
Brakes
20.7% of faults · 20.9% nationally
mostly worn pads and discs, corroded pipes and a handbrake that will not hold.
Which year to buy
- Best 2020 78.9% pass
- Avoid 2016 71.7% pass
Across the 5 years on record, a spread of 7.2 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 69.0%
- Typical mileage
- 186k mi
The 2017 Ford Journey MOT pass rate is 75.9% of its MOT tests — 10.1 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Brakes is the biggest single reason it fails, at 20.7% of what testers record.
Check your postcode
MOT pass rates are national — type your postcode to see how Ford Journey does in your corner of the country.
Expert verdict
Advisories: 2.5× the national share
Advisories make up 10.6% of everything recorded on the 2017 Ford Journey, against 4.2% nationally — 6.4 points above. Brakes are still the single largest share at 20.7%, but at 20.9% nationally that one is ordinary. Most of what testers record here is advisory — worth reading, not worth walking away from on its own.
- Falls short of its own age and mileage. Like-for-like, cars this age and mileage expect about 86.0%; this one manages 75.9% — 10.1 points below. Age is a fair excuse; this is not age.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 18% 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 Ford Journey? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2017 Ford Journey compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 86.0%, so this figure is 10.1 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 69.0%. The median 2017 Ford Journey in this dataset had covered 185,640 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 76.1% of the time, April–September 75.7%.
The single most recorded failure item is "On or after 01/01/2014 emissions exceed manufacturer's specified limit", noted on 4.46% of tests.
- 224 recorded tests behind this page.
- 75.9% overall pass rate, 69.0% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Ford Journey, the average is 75.8% — best year 2020 (78.9%), worst 2016 (71.7%).
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
- 224
- Typical mileage (median)
- 185,640 mi
- Make and model
- Ford Journey
- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Emissions Repair
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Does mileage affect the Journey MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 66% so small gaps stay visible.
Regional pass rates for the Journey
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South West | 52 | 67.3% |
| Scotland | 45 | 73.3% |
| Yorkshire | 26 | 76.9% |
| South East | 22 | 86.4% |
| West Midlands | 22 | 77.3% |
| North West | 21 | 76.2% |
| Wales | 16 | 75.0% |
| North East | 15 | 86.7% |
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 2017 Journey
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 2017 Journey
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 exhaust and emissions 4.5% of tests
“on or after 01/01/2014 emissions exceed manufacturer's specified limit”
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 windscreen 4.5% 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 4.0% 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 2017 Journey through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £43–£130 — and 18% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £43–£130
- Cheapest common item: position lamp not working
- £5–£25
- Dearest common item: on or after 01/01/2014 emissions exceed…
- £60–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 60%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 18%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 224 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 Journey, side by side
5 model years on record, from 2016 to 2020. Across them the pass rate runs from 71.7% to 78.9% — a spread of 7.2 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2016 71.7% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2017 75.9%on or after 01/01/2014 emissions…
- 2018 76.2% tyre pressure monitoring system…
- 2019 76.1% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2020 78.9% windscreen damaged but not…
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 2017 Ford Journey 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 2017 cars with a similar record
- Vauxhall Combo 76.1%
- Fiat Talento 75.7%
- SsangYong Rodius 76.3%
- Renault Zoe 75.4%
- Peugeot Bipper 76.8%
- Renault Clio 78.0%
Closest pass rates among 2017 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 2017 Ford Journey 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 382 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 | 80 | 20.70% | 20.89% | −0.19 |
| Tyres | 77 | 19.90% | 19.76% | +0.14 |
| Suspension | 53 | 13.70% | 20.98% | −7.28 |
| Non-component advisories | 41 | 10.60% | 4.18% | +6.42 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 36 | 9.30% | 5.52% | +3.78 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 26 | 6.70% | 5.57% | +1.13 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 25 | 6.50% | 12.21% | −5.71 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 17 | 4.40% | 0.82% | +3.58 |
| Visibility | 15 | 3.90% | 4.97% | −1.07 |
| Steering | 12 | 3.10% | 2.57% | +0.53 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| On or after 01/01/2014 emissions exceed manufacturer's specified limit Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 4.5% | £60–250 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 4.5% | £80–200 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 4.0% | £18–45 |
| Joints constant velocity boot severely deteriorated Body, chassis, structure | Minor | 3.1% | £80–250 |
| Tyre pressure monitoring system malfunctioning or obviously inoperative Tyres | Major | 3.1% | £45–95 |
| Position lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 2.7% | £5–25 |
| Rear reflectors defective or damaged by up to 50% of the reflecting surface Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 2.7% | £5–25 |
| Has ply or cords exposed Tyres | Major | 2.2% | £45–95 |
| Linkage ball joints ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Major | 1.8% | £18–45 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 1.8% | £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.
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 | 20.5% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Play in steering rack inner joint(s) Non-component advisories | Advisory | 14.7% | £120–300 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 9.4% | £18–45 |
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Advisory | 8.5% | £80–180 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 7.6% | £200–700 |
| Ball joint excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 7.1% | £18–45 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 1 | 100.0% | 24,436 mi |
| 30-60k | 6 | 100.0% | 43,682 mi |
| 60-90k | 3 | 100.0% | 73,204 mi |
| 90-120k | 18 | 77.8% | 106,847 mi |
| 120k+ | 187 | 74.3% | 196,044 mi |
Source: 224 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.
2017 Journey MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2017 Ford Journey?
75.9% of the 224 2017 Ford Journey tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 86.0% for cars first used in 2017. First-attempt pass rate: 69.0%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2017 Ford Journey?
The three most recorded items are on or after 01/01/2014 emissions exceed manufacturer's specified limit (4.46%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (4.46%), ball joint excessively worn (4.02%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2017 Ford Journey MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 100.0% of the time, falling to 74.3% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2017 Ford Journey in this dataset had covered 185,640 mi.
Does the season affect the 2017 Ford Journey MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 76.1% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 75.7%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.