All generations and engines together · 131,080 MOT tests in the 2025 data · typical mileage at age 7: 57k
Split by first-registration year. Cars registered in a changeover year can belong to either generation.
Computed from DVSA MOT results, all of Great Britain, 2025. Nothing here is opinion.
Share of tests where each item was recorded. The dark tick is the class average across all tracked models; bars are scaled within each group.
The rows that judge the model rather than its keeper. 80,863 tests in this band.
Tyres, pads and stone chips say more about how the car was driven and maintained than about how it was built.
Owner folklore from forums and the motoring press. Most of it never shows up in an MOT, which is why this section exists at all.
Diesel Active Tourer and Gran Tourer models (218d/220d) were the subject of an EGR cooler recall from around 2019, but several owners report dealers only applied a software fix rather than replacing parts. The valve then failed for real afterwards, leaving buyers with bills of £600 or more that BMW sometimes covered as goodwill, sometimes did not. Watch for a drivetrain malfunction message or a rough, hesitant engine.
Owners of the Active Tourer and Gran Tourer, the MPV-bodied 2 Series models, repeatedly report a noisy front nearside strut top bearing, sometimes replaced under warranty as early as 9,000 miles, sometimes failing again around 40-50,000 miles at a cost of several hundred pounds. This lines up with the measured MOT data for this segment, which flags suspension as the standout fault area; the strut top mount and general front-end clonk is the folklore version buyers should listen for on a test drive.
Early four-cylinder turbo petrol cars (the N20 engine, before it was replaced by the B48) can suffer timing chain and guide wear, showing up as a rattle on start-up or a whining engine noise. One UK owner reported outright chain failure at 26,000 miles on a 2016 car. In the US, BMW extended the warranty on the affected engine to 7 years or 70,000 miles, an implicit admission of the problem, though no equivalent extended-warranty campaign has been confirmed for UK cars.
Several owners across different body styles, coupe and convertible included, report water pooling inside the rear light clusters, sometimes needing three or four replacement sets over the car's life. It is not a safety-critical fault in itself but points to a sealing weakness, and parts have been reported as being on backorder at times. No recall or TSB has been found for it.
A handful of owners have found the automatic radiator vent (the shutter system behind the grille) jammed by polystyrene packing debris left over from manufacturing, which stops the engine cooling properly and can trigger a temperature warning. Whether this counts as a genuine design fault or a one-off manufacturing slip is argued over in owner reports, since it has turned up on more than one body style but is far from universal.
On the six-cylinder B58 cars, the radiator sits exposed enough that a minor stone strike can crack it, an issue Honest John describes as a well known weakness on these models. Replacement runs to roughly £800. It only affects the M140i/M240i, not the four-cylinder cars.
Built from the two sections above.
Same segment (MPVs), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.
Head to head with the other popular cars in its class on reliability and common faults.