Pass rate
78.8%
Around average — 6.2 pts ahead of the 72.6% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 5,772 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £21–£56
2003 Jaguar Xj MOT pass rate
- 2003
- typical 108,179 mi
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Suspension
30.1% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Part only £35–£75 for Suspension pin or bush excessively worn. What fitting it takes →
2.2 pts down across model years — 3.4% in 2000, 1.2% in 2019.
Which year to buy
- Best 2020 94.3% pass
- Avoid 2004 77.7% pass
Across the 21 years on record, a spread of 16.6 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 74.5%
- Typical mileage
- 108k mi
The 2003 Jaguar Xj MOT pass rate is 78.8% of its MOT tests — 6.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 30.1% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Suspension: 1.4× the national share
Suspension accounts for 30.1% of everything recorded on the 2003 Jaguar Xj, against 21.0% nationally — 9.1 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.
- Beats its own age and mileage. Once you allow for how old and how far these cars have been driven, the expected pass rate is 72.6% and this one manages 78.8% — 6.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict.
- When it fails, it costs. Only 16% 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 Jaguar Xj? Get an email when these numbers change .
How does the 2003 Jaguar Xj compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.6%, so this figure is 6.2 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 74.5%. The median 2003 Jaguar Xj in this dataset had covered 108,179 mi.
99% of the tests on this vehicle ran on Petrol, which passed 78.7% of the time. Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 78.7% of the time, April–September 78.9%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated", noted on 12.63% of tests.
- 5,772 recorded tests behind this page.
- 78.8% overall pass rate, 74.5% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Jaguar Xj, the average is 82.3% — best year 2020 (94.3%), worst 2004 (77.7%).
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
- 5,772
- Typical mileage (median)
- 108,179 mi
- Make and model
- Jaguar Xj
- 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 Xj MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 69% so small gaps stay visible.
Fuel type and reliability
Pass rate by fuel type. Petrol is the most common here (99% of tests).
Where the Jaguar Xj is most common
Across all Xj model years on record (2000–2020): 30,481 Jaguar Xj cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 68,447 tests. Birmingham (B) has the most, with 1,079 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) | 1,079 | 85.4% |
| 2 | Peterborough (PE) | 736 | 81.4% |
| 3 | Coventry (CV) | 662 | 83.6% |
| 4 | Sheffield (S) | 645 | 88.2% |
| 5 | Nottingham (NG) | 554 | 84.1% |
| 6 | Reading (RG) | 537 | 80.8% |
| 7 | Leicester (LE) | 528 | 82.8% |
| 8 | Chelmsford (CM) | 498 | 86.5% |
| 9 | Liverpool (L) | 481 | 84.3% |
| 10 | Derby (DE) | 469 | 85.9% |
| 11 | Northampton (NN) | 462 | 81.7% |
| 12 | Doncaster (DN) | 459 | 82.9% |
| 13 | Glasgow (G) | 446 | 81.5% |
| 14 | Guildford (GU) | 429 | 79.1% |
| 15 | Ashford (TN) | 424 | 81.9% |
| 16 | Manchester (M) | 414 | 88.4% |
| 17 | Portsmouth (PO) | 413 | 77.4% |
| 18 | Bristol (BS) | 407 | 78.3% |
| 19 | Milton Keynes (MK) | 407 | 84.2% |
| 20 | Cardiff (CF) | 406 | 78.4% |
The twenty areas with the most Jaguar Xj 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 Xj
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 1,404 | 78.6% |
| East of England | 717 | 81.7% |
| West Midlands | 588 | 78.2% |
| North West | 577 | 80.4% |
| South West | 528 | 73.5% |
| Yorkshire | 421 | 79.8% |
| Scotland | 377 | 72.9% |
| East Midlands | 363 | 80.4% |
| London | 348 | 85.1% |
| Wales | 264 | 76.9% |
| North East | 185 | 77.3% |
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 2003 Xj
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 2003 Xj
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 12.6% of tests
“ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated”
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 4.8% 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 2.7% 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.
What it costs to get a 2003 Xj through its MOT
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £21–£56 — and 16% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 10 common items
- £21–£56
- Cheapest common item: malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or…
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: windscreen damaged
- £80–£200
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 80%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 16%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 5,772 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 Xj, side by side
21 model years on record, from 2000 to 2020. Across them the pass rate runs from 77.7% to 94.3% — a spread of 16.6 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 78.3% component mounting prescribed…
- 2001 80.3% component mounting prescribed…
- 2002 78.1% component mounting prescribed…
- 2003 78.8%ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2004 77.7% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2005 79.6% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2006 79.2% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2007 79.2% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2008 81.0% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2009 81.9% ball joint dust cover severely…
- 2010 81.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2011 82.1% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2012 84.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2013 83.2% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2014 84.0% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2015 87.6% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2016 87.7% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2017 90.1% registration plate lamp(s)…
- 2018 91.0% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2019 92.1% has a cut in excess of the…
- 2020 94.3% 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 2003 Jaguar Xj 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 2003 cars with a similar record
- Mercedes-Benz Slk 78.3%
- Lexus IS200 78.0%
- Subaru Impreza 80.0%
- BMW Z4 77.5%
- Porsche Boxster 80.4%
- BMW 530 77.1%
Closest pass rates among 2003 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 2003 Jaguar Xj 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 12,823 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 | 3,888 | 30.10% | 20.98% | +9.12 |
| Brakes | 3,117 | 24.10% | 20.89% | +3.21 |
| Tyres | 1,461 | 11.30% | 19.76% | −8.46 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 1,187 | 9.20% | 12.21% | −3.01 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 1,130 | 8.70% | 5.52% | +3.18 |
| Steering | 727 | 5.60% | 2.57% | +3.03 |
| Visibility | 635 | 4.90% | 4.97% | −0.07 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 267 | 2.10% | 5.57% | −3.47 |
| Non-component advisories | 246 | 1.90% | 4.18% | −2.28 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 165 | 1.30% | 1.76% | −0.46 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 12.6% | £18–45 |
| Ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 5.9% | £18–45 |
| Track rod end ball joint dust cover damaged or deteriorated, but preventing the ingress of dirt Steering | Minor | 5.2% | £18–45 |
| Registration plate lamp(s) inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 4.8% | £5–20 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated Suspension | Minor | 3.3% | £18–45 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 2.7% | £80–200 |
| Track rod end ball joint dust cover excessively damaged or deteriorated so that it no longer prevents the ingress of… Steering | Major | 2.6% | £18–45 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 2.5% | £40–150 |
| Malfunction indicator lamp inoperative or indicates a malfunction Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 2.4% | £3–12 |
| Linkage ball joint dust cover ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Suspension | Major | 2.0% | £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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigid brake pipes excessively corroded Brakes | Advisory | 16.4% | £80–180 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 11.4% | £45–95 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 11.1% | £40–150 |
| Sub-frame corroded and seriously weakened Suspension | Advisory | 11.1% | £180–450 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 10.9% | £200–700 |
| Brake discs in such a condition that it is seriously weakened Brakes | Advisory | 9.0% | £45–110 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 87 | 88.5% | 20,728 mi |
| 30-60k | 474 | 84.0% | 48,940 mi |
| 60-90k | 1,172 | 79.5% | 76,899 mi |
| 90-120k | 1,764 | 78.4% | 104,475 mi |
| 120k+ | 2,265 | 77.2% | 150,259 mi |
Source: 5,772 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.
2003 Xj MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2003 Jaguar Xj?
78.8% of the 5,772 2003 Jaguar Xj tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.6% for cars first used in 2003. First-attempt pass rate: 74.5%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2003 Jaguar Xj?
The three most recorded items are ball joint dust cover severely deteriorated (12.63%), ball joint dust cover no longer prevents the ingress of dirt (5.91%), track rod end ball joint dust cover damaged or deteriorated, but preventing the ingress of dirt (5.23%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2003 Jaguar Xj MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 88.5% of the time, falling to 77.2% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2003 Jaguar Xj in this dataset had covered 108,179 mi.
Which fuel type is most reliable for a 2003 Jaguar Xj?
Petrol: 78.7% pass rate across 5,741 tests. LPG: 84.6% pass rate across 26 tests. Shares are of the tests on this vehicle that recorded each fuel type.
Does the season affect the 2003 Jaguar Xj MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 78.7% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 78.9%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.