An analysis of 24.5 million MOT records obtained by consumer motoring champion, HonestJohn.co.uk, reveals that the Ford Ranger is the commercial vehicle with the highest pass rate in the country beating Britain’s best-selling van to the top spot.
The Ford Ranger raced into first place while the Citroen Dispatch finished last in a report that featured two of Britain’s bestsellers at the bottom of the table.
The Ford Ranger took first place in the results. No other commercial vehicle comes close to matching its impressive 81% pass rate. The Ranger, a practical and well-priced pick-up, is quickly becoming a favourite amongst Britons after first being imported from the United States in 1998.
The most common reasons for failure included lighting and electrical equipment, followed by wipers, washers and windscreens, and lastly tyres.
Second was the Peugeot Bipper with a 79% MOT success rate – one of the breed of light vans like the Renault Kangoo that are specially built to have low operating costs.
With almost 47,000 models sold in 2010, the Ford Transit was a surprising addition to the bottom ten.
The Transit Connect came in sixth from bottom with a MOT pass rate of only 61% while the original Transit fared only slightly better as the van with the tenth lowest MOT pass rate of 65%.
The Mercedes Sprinter might be one of Britain’s bestsellers but with a mediocre pass rate of 55.8% that’s not good enough to make it into the top ten.
The Sprinter’s main reasons for MOT failure included broken electrics with lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment the number one reason, followed by brakes and suspension.
Britain’s van drivers may be losing out in the reliability stakes as only one of Britain’s five bestselling models is listed in the top ten vans most likely to pass their MOT – the Volkswagen Transporter, the third biggest bestseller, came in at number seven with a MOT pass rate of 74%.
