Pass rate
92.9%
Above average — 20.7 pts ahead of the 72.2% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 85 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £44–£124
2004 Morgan Plus MOT pass rate
- 2004
- 2 trims combined
- typical 22,011 mi
Only 85 tests of this exact model and year are in the DVSA data, below the 100 we ask for before a page goes in the index. The figures are still shown, because they are the only ones there are.
Check your postcode
Most common fault
Lamps & electrics
22.7% of faults · 12.2% nationally
Which year to buy
- Best 2010 96.3% pass
- Avoid 2003 82.2% pass
Across the 22 years on record, a spread of 14.1 points. See every year →
- First-attempt pass
- 92.3%
- Typical mileage
- 22k mi
The 2004 Morgan Plus MOT pass rate is 92.9% of its MOT tests — 20.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. Lamps & electrics is the biggest single reason it fails, at 22.7% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Lamps & electrics: 1.9× the national share
Lamps & electrics make up 22.7% of everything recorded on the 2004 Morgan Plus, against 12.2% nationally — 10.5 points above. 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.
- 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 72.2% and this one manages 92.9% — 20.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict.
- Failures here tend to be cheap ones. 55% of the repairs this model fails on cost under £30 in parts. The pass rate matters less than what a bad afternoon at the test centre actually costs you.
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 Morgan Plus? Get an email when these numbers change .
Every Morgan Plus first registered in 2004 is combined here — 2 trim and body variants in total — so the sample is as large as the DVSA data allows.
How does the 2004 Morgan Plus compare?
Cars of this age and mileage average 72.2%, so this figure is 20.7 points ahead of what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 92.3%. The median 2004 Morgan Plus in this dataset had covered 22,011 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 88.9% of the time, April–September 95.9%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Steering rack gaiter missing or no longer prevents the ingress of dirt", noted on 2.35% of tests.
- 85 recorded tests behind this page.
- 92.9% overall pass rate, 92.3% on a first attempt.
- Across every year of the Morgan Plus, the average is 92.3% — best year 2010 (96.3%), worst 2003 (82.2%).
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
- 85
- Typical mileage (median)
- 22,011 mi
- Make and model
- Morgan Plus
- Updated
- 2026-11-07
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Top part to budget for
Steering Rack
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Does mileage affect the Plus MOT pass rate?
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 82% so small gaps stay visible.
Where the Morgan Plus is most common
Across all Plus model years on record (2000–2021): 2,134 Morgan Plus cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 4,540 tests. Worcester (WR) has the most, with 147 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 | Worcester (WR) | 147 | 94.4% |
| 2 | Ashford (TN) | 144 | 90.3% |
| 3 | Bristol (BS) | 122 | 95.9% |
| 4 | Milton Keynes (MK) | 89 | 85.6% |
| 5 | Gloucester (GL) | 84 | 94.0% |
| 6 | Exeter (EX) | 80 | 90.9% |
| 7 | Doncaster (DN) | 66 | 97.9% |
| 8 | Reading (RG) | 60 | 90.4% |
| 9 | Salisbury (SP) | 54 | 91.1% |
| 10 | Guildford (GU) | 52 | 82.6% |
| 11 | Chelmsford (CM) | 51 | 94.2% |
| 12 | Crewe (CW) | 49 | 94.2% |
| 13 | Ipswich (IP) | 46 | 87.5% |
| 14 | Perth (PH) | 45 | 93.7% |
| 15 | Preston (PR) | 40 | 100.0% |
| 16 | Stevenage (SG) | 39 | 97.8% |
| 17 | Oxford (OX) | 29 | 88.6% |
| 18 | Birmingham (B) | 26 | 100.0% |
| 19 | Coventry (CV) | 25 | 86.4% |
| 20 | Leicester (LE) | 25 | 97.8% |
The twenty areas with the most Morgan Plus 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 Plus
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 31 | 90.3% |
| South West | 20 | 90.0% |
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 Plus
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 Plus
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 steering 2.4% of tests
“steering rack gaiter missing or no longer prevents the ingress of dirt”
With the wheels straight, rock the steering wheel gently with the engine off — more than about an inch of free play before the wheels move is worth investigating. Split rack gaiters are cheap to replace and commonly recorded.
-
Check the windscreen 2.4% 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 exhaust and emissions 1.2% of tests
“catalyst emissions Lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits”
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.
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 Plus through its MOT
Across the 9 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £44–£124 — and 55% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
- Average repair across the 9 common items
- £44–£124
- Cheapest common item: stop lamp all not working
- £3–£12
- Dearest common item: steering rack gaiter missing or no longer…
- £120–£300
- Common items a careful owner can do at home
- 67%
- Repairs that still cost under £30
- 55%
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 85 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 Plus, side by side
22 model years on record, from 2000 to 2021. Across them the pass rate runs from 82.2% to 96.3% — a spread of 14.1 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
- 2000 90.0% service brake imbalance across an…
- 2001 91.6% steering rack gaiter missing or…
- 2002 89.2% catalyst emissions lambda reading…
- 2003 82.2% steering rack gaiter missing or…
- 2004 92.9%steering rack gaiter missing or…
- 2005 94.6% hose chafing
- 2006 90.8% malfunction indicator lamp…
- 2007 95.7% headlamp aim projected beam image…
- 2008 92.7% wipers blade defective
- 2009 91.4% service brake performance…
- 2010 96.3% windscreen damaged but not…
- 2011 93.0% service brake imbalance across an…
- 2012 92.0% catalyst emissions carbon…
- 2013 93.2% catalyst emissions carbon…
- 2014 92.3% direction indicator tell-tale…
- 2015 95.9% service brake performance…
- 2016 89.5% service brake performance…
- 2017 92.6% service brake performance…
- 2018 91.5% steering rack gaiter missing or…
- 2019 93.6% steering rack gaiter missing or…
- 2020 90.4% steering rack gaiter missing or…
- 2021 92.6% parking brake performance…
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 Morgan Plus 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
- Bentley Continental 89.2%
- BMW M3 88.2%
- Porsche 911 87.2%
- Mercedes-Benz Sl 86.7%
- Honda S2000 86.7%
- Mercedes-Benz S-Class 83.1%
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 Morgan Plus 9 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 22 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 5 | 22.70% | 12.21% | +10.49 |
| Tyres | 4 | 18.20% | 19.76% | −1.56 |
| Visibility | 3 | 13.60% | 4.97% | +8.63 |
| Suspension | 2 | 9.10% | 20.98% | −11.88 |
| Brakes | 2 | 9.10% | 20.89% | −11.79 |
| Steering | 2 | 9.10% | 2.57% | +6.53 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 1 | 4.50% | 5.57% | −1.07 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 1 | 4.50% | 5.52% | −1.02 |
| Non-component advisories | 1 | 4.50% | 4.18% | +0.32 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 1 | 4.50% | 0.82% | +3.68 |
The exact failure items, in the tester's words
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steering rack gaiter missing or no longer prevents the ingress of dirt Steering | Major | 2.4% | £120–300 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 2.4% | £80–200 |
| Catalyst emissions Lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits Noise, emissions and leaks | Major | 1.2% | £60–250 |
| Horn not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.2% | £8–25 |
| Position lamp with a multiple light source up to 1/2 not functioning Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 1.2% | £5–25 |
| Rear fog lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Rectified | 1.2% | £3–15 |
| Stop lamp all not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.2% | £3–12 |
| Stop lamp not working Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 1.2% | £3–12 |
| Wipers blade defective Visibility | Minor | 1.2% | £8–22 |
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 | 3.5% | £45–95 |
| Exhaust system has a major leak of exhaust gases Body, chassis, structure | Advisory | 1.2% | £45–120 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 1.2% | £45–95 |
| Non-component advisories Play in steering rack inner joint(s) Non-component advisories | Advisory | 1.2% | £120–300 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 1.2% | £40–150 |
| Service brake imbalance across an axle Brakes | Advisory | 1.2% | £45–110 |
Pass rate by mileage
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 58 | 93.1% | 15,443 mi |
| 30-60k | 20 | 90.0% | 43,370 mi |
| 60-90k | 4 | 100.0% | 73,222 mi |
| 90-120k | 3 | 100.0% | 99,662 mi |
Source: 85 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 Plus MOT questions
What is the MOT pass rate for a 2004 Morgan Plus?
92.9% of the 85 2004 Morgan Plus tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 72.2% for cars first used in 2004. First-attempt pass rate: 92.3%.
What are the most common MOT failures on a 2004 Morgan Plus?
The three most recorded items are steering rack gaiter missing or no longer prevents the ingress of dirt (2.35%), windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (2.35%), catalyst emissions lambda reading after 2nd fast idle outside specified limits (1.18%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Does mileage affect the 2004 Morgan Plus MOT pass rate?
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 93.1% of the time, falling to 100.0% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2004 Morgan Plus in this dataset had covered 22,011 mi.
Does the season affect the 2004 Morgan Plus MOT pass rate?
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 88.9% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 95.9%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.