2020 BMW 218i Sport: MOT pass rate and reliability

90.2% of 2020 BMW 218i Sports pass the MOT first time, measured across 369 DVSA tests on that model year alone. The average one had covered 32,710 miles.

How the 2020 compares

  • Against all BMW 218i Sports (88.9%, 2,235 tests): +1.3 points
  • Against all 2020 cars (89.4%): +0.8 points
  • National first-time pass rate, all cars and years: 77%

Every BMW 218i Sport model year

Pass rates fall as cars age, so the only fair comparison for a 2020 car is other cars of the same age. The full run for the BMW 218i Sport:

Year Pass rate Tests Avg mileage
2018 88% 241 44,550
2019 90.2% 633 40,110
2020 90.2% 369 32,710
2021 87.7% 980 28,123

What this means if you are buying a 2020 218i Sport

The 2020 sits close to the BMW 218i Sport average, so there is no strong model-year signal either way. Judge the individual car on its own history. Check the exact car with the free MOT history checker before you buy, and run its VIN and mileage through our free VIN decoder and clocking check.

What a 6-year-old car fails on

A 2020 car is 6 years old now, and age drives the failure mix more than the badge does. Across all cars tested, these are the categories that actually cause failures:

  • Lights and electrical: 10.36% of all cars tested
  • Suspension: 8.65% of all cars tested
  • Tyres: 6.23% of all cars tested
  • Brakes: 6.1% of all cars tested
  • Visibility: wipers, washers, glass: 4.65% of all cars tested
  • Body, chassis and structure: 3.18% of all cars tested

That is below average for a car this age, worth a mileage-consistency check since an unusually low reading is sometimes clocking rather than luck. On a 2020 BMW 218i Sport the average at test was 32,710 miles, so treat anything far above that as a car that has worked harder than its peers, and anything far below as one worth checking for the faults that come from standing still.

The strongest year for this model is 2019 at 90.2%, and the weakest in our data is 2021 at 87.7%. That 2.5 point spread across the model's life is why comparing a 2020 car against a newer one tells you very little.

Nearby model years

All BMW 218i Sport MOT data · Every model