Pass rate
88.7%
Above average — 0.8 pts ahead of the 87.9% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 35,001 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £29–£78
2018 Ford Ka MOT pass rate
- 2018
- 3 trims combined
- typical 29,775 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Tyres
34.3% 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 2019 92.6% pass
- Avoid 2008 66.2% pass
Across the 20 years on record, a spread of 26.4 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 87.4%
- Typical mileage
- 30k mi
The 2018 Ford Ka MOT pass rate is 88.7% of its MOT tests — about what its age and mileage predict. Tyres is the biggest single reason it fails, at 34.3% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Tyres: 1.7× the national share
Tyres make up 34.3% of everything recorded on the 2018 Ford Ka, against 19.8% nationally — 14.5 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.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 26% 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 Ka? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Ford Ka first registered in 2018 is combined here — 3 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2018 Ford Ka compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 87.9%, so this figure is 0.8 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 87.4%. The median 2018 Ford Ka in this dataset had covered 29,775 mi.
The most common fuel recorded here is Petrol — 100% of tests, with a 88.7% pass rate. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 89.3% of the time, April–September 88.1%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Track rod end ball joint has excessive play", noted on 2.25% of tests.
- 35,001 recorded tests behind this page.
- 88.7% overall pass rate, 87.4% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Ford Ka, the average is 78.0% — best year 2019 (92.6%), worst 2008 (66.2%).
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
- 35,001
- Typical mileage (median)
- 29,775 mi
- Make and model
- Ford Ka
- 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 Ka MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 66% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (100% of tests).
Where the Ford Ka is most common
Across all Ka model years on record (2000–2019): 253,674 Ford Ka cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 655,731 tests. Birmingham (B) has the most, with 8,526 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) | 8,526 | 79.9% |
| 2 | Sheffield (S) | 5,823 | 79.8% |
| 3 | Cardiff (CF) | 5,618 | 74.4% |
| 4 | Nottingham (NG) | 5,150 | 75.7% |
| 5 | Leicester (LE) | 4,977 | 80.4% |
| 6 | Bristol (BS) | 4,861 | 74.1% |
| 7 | Chelmsford (CM) | 4,617 | 80.8% |
| 8 | Basildon (SS) | 4,434 | 81.1% |
| 9 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 4,214 | 78.2% |
| 10 | Manchester (M) | 3,981 | 78.3% |
| 11 | Peterborough (PE) | 3,967 | 80.2% |
| 12 | Portsmouth (PO) | 3,930 | 76.3% |
| 13 | Norwich (NR) | 3,848 | 79.7% |
| 14 | Maidstone (ME) | 3,809 | 80.5% |
| 15 | Liverpool (L) | 3,781 | 79.4% |
| 16 | Derby (DE) | 3,751 | 79.2% |
| 17 | Coventry (CV) | 3,719 | 78.4% |
| 18 | Ashford (TN) | 3,568 | 79.3% |
| 19 | Romford (RM) | 3,508 | 85.0% |
| 20 | Doncaster (DN) | 3,455 | 78.6% |
The twenty areas with the most Ford Ka 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 Ka
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 6,185 | 89.8% |
| North West | 4,423 | 89.4% |
| Scotland | 4,212 | 82.2% |
| East of England | 4,065 | 90.4% |
| Yorkshire | 3,186 | 89.7% |
| South West | 2,839 | 87.5% |
| West Midlands | 2,767 | 90.8% |
| East Midlands | 2,307 | 91.1% |
| North East | 2,028 | 87.1% |
| Wales | 2,012 | 88.8% |
| London | 977 | 92.0% |
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 2018 Ka
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 Ka
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 2.3% of tests
“track rod end ball joint has excessive play”
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 brakes 1.1% 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.
-
Check the lights 0.9% of tests
“headlamp not working on dipped beam”
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 2018 Ka through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £29–£78 — and 26% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £29–£78
- Cheapest common item: headlamp not working on dipped beam
- £5–£25
- Dearest common item: joints constant velocity boot split or…
- £80–£250
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 80%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 26%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 35,001 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 Ka, side by side
20 model years on record, from 2000 to 2019. Across them the pass rate runs from 66.2% to 92.6% — a spread of 26.4 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 69.7% component mounting prescribed…
- 2001 66.3% component mounting prescribed…
- 2002 67.2% component mounting prescribed…
- 2003 68.0% component mounting prescribed…
- 2004 66.7% component mounting prescribed…
- 2005 67.3% component mounting prescribed…
- 2006 66.8% component mounting prescribed…
- 2007 66.4% component mounting prescribed…
- 2008 66.2% component mounting prescribed…
- 2009 71.9% rbt (sp) efficiency below…
- 2010 72.8% rbt (sp) efficiency below…
- 2011 75.6% ball joint excessively worn
- 2012 77.5% pins and bushes pin or bush…
- 2013 79.1% pins and bushes pin or bush…
- 2014 80.9% shock absorbers has a serious…
- 2015 80.6% shock absorbers has a serious…
- 2016 82.5% coil spring fractured or broken
- 2017 89.5% headlamp not working on dipped…
- 2018 88.7%track rod end ball joint has…
- 2019 92.6% 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 2018 Ford Ka 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
- Volkswagen Arteon 88.7%
- Hyundai I10 88.8%
- Mercedes-Benz Gla 88.8%
- Volkswagen Passat 88.6%
- Land Rover Range Rover Velar 88.6%
- BMW 420 88.6%
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 Ford Ka 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 29,510 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 | 10,238 | 34.30% | 19.76% | +14.54 |
| Brakes | 6,194 | 20.80% | 20.89% | −0.09 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 3,246 | 10.90% | 12.21% | −1.31 |
| Suspension | 2,279 | 7.60% | 20.98% | −13.38 |
| Steering | 2,274 | 7.60% | 2.57% | +5.03 |
| Non-component advisories | 1,851 | 6.20% | 4.18% | +2.02 |
| Visibility | 1,472 | 4.90% | 4.97% | −0.07 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 1,128 | 3.80% | 5.57% | −1.77 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 518 | 1.70% | 5.52% | −3.82 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 310 | 1.00% | 1.76% | −0.76 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Track rod end ball joint has excessive play Steering | Major | 2.3% | £18–45 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Major | 1.1% | £18–45 |
| Headlamp not working on dipped beam Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 0.91% | £5–25 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 0.85% | £80–200 |
| Headlamp not working on dipped beam Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 0.83% | £5–25 |
| Joints constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Body, chassis, structure | Major | 0.83% | £80–250 |
| Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 0.77% | £18–45 |
| Headlamp levelling device inoperative Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 0.74% | £5–25 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Major | 0.73% | £45–95 |
| Has a cut in excess of the requirements deep enough to reach the ply or cords Tyres | Major | 0.69% | £45–95 |
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 | 13.6% | £45–95 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 9.2% | £45–95 |
| Brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick Brakes | Advisory | 8.9% | £18–45 |
| Track rod end ball joint has excessive play Steering | Advisory | 3.7% | £18–45 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 3.5% | £45–110 |
| Non-component advisories Child Seat fitted not allowing full inspection of adult belt Non-component advisories | Advisory | 2.1% | £20–80 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 17,704 | 93.0% | 19,221 mi |
| 30-60k | 14,794 | 85.1% | 41,551 mi |
| 60-90k | 2,232 | 79.8% | 69,970 mi |
| 90-120k | 235 | 74.9% | 99,746 mi |
| 120k+ | 35 | 80.0% | 136,341 mi |
Source: 35,001 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 Ka MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2018 Ford Ka?
88.7% of the 35,001 2018 Ford Ka tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 87.9% for cars first used in 2018. First-attempt pass rate: 87.4%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2018 Ford Ka?
The three most recorded items are track rod end ball joint has excessive play (2.25%), brake pads less than 1.5 mm thick (1.11%), headlamp not working on dipped beam (0.91%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2018 Ford Ka MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 93.0% of the time, falling to 80.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2018 Ford Ka in this dataset had covered 29,775 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2018 Ford Ka?
Petrol: 88.7% pass rate across 34,963 tests. Diesel: 81.6% pass rate across 38 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2018 Ford Ka MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 89.3% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 88.1%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.