Britain's most and least reliable vans: 2.1 million MOT tests analysed

The car reliability data had one follow-up: vans. We ranked 16 mainstream vans by MOT pass rate across 2.1 million tests, and the results surprised us.

MOT DATA · 5 min read

We ran the van numbers too

Our most-and-least-reliable-cars piece used the DVSA's anonymised MOT dataset to rank cars by first-time pass rate. The obvious next question from readers running a trade or a small fleet was: what about vans? We aggregated every mainstream light commercial van in the same dataset by base model across all trims, keeping only models with at least 2,000 tests to cut out low-volume noise. That leaves 16 vans across 2,156,590 tests.

The most reliable vans

Ranked by first-time MOT pass rate: 1. Fiat Ducato, 77.3 percent (72,592 tests). 2. Peugeot Boxer, 76.9 percent (53,846 tests). 3. Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, 74.3 percent (24,425 tests). 4. Volkswagen Caddy, 73.7 percent (147,813 tests). 5. Peugeot Expert, 73.4 percent (54,399 tests). The top two share a platform, which shows up clearly in how close their pass rates land.

The least reliable vans

At the other end: 16. Renault Kangoo, 61.3 percent (55,431 tests). 15. Vauxhall Vivaro, 62.4 percent (182,920 tests). 14. Citroen Relay, 68.2 percent (14,304 tests). 13. Vauxhall Combo, 68.2 percent (108,409 tests). 12. Fiat Doblo, 68.8 percent (47,185 tests). The Vivaro's result is notable given how common it is as a trade workhorse, and how far it sits behind the Ducato and Boxer despite comparable size and use case.

The Ford Transit sits mid-table

Britain's best-selling van by a wide margin, the Ford Transit, passes 72.9 percent of the time across 645,690 tests, the single largest sample in the dataset by far. That is a solid but unremarkable result: seventh out of sixteen, ahead of the Berlingo/Combo/Partner small-van trio but behind the Ducato, Boxer, Sprinter, Caddy and Expert. Sheer numbers on the road do not translate into a reliability edge.

Same platform, different results

The Berlingo, Partner and Combo are effectively the same van under three badges, Citroen, Peugeot and Vauxhall, and their pass rates land within three points of each other (68.2 to 71.7 percent), which is what you would expect from shared engineering. The bigger surprise is the spread between Ducato and Boxer at the top (both around 77 percent) versus Sprinter, Vito and Crafter lower down despite all being in the same large-van class. Age and mileage in the specific fleet tested pulls harder on the number than badge or size class alone.

What this means if you are buying a van as salvage

A below-average pass rate is not a reason to walk away from a specific van, it is a reason to budget harder for the MOT-time items and check service history properly before you bid, same logic as the car data. Vans forgive a Cat S or Cat N marker better than cars do, since trade buyers care more about uptime than a spotless history, see our Transit and Sprinter flipping guide for that angle. Run the specific reg through our free Vehicle History checker for its own MOT record, then put the lot through the Analyzer to see if the repair and fee numbers still work.

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