All generations and engines together · 53,637 MOT tests in the 2025 data · typical mileage at age 7: 40k
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. 18,793 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.
The 1.6 PowerShift automatic is a dry dual-clutch box that doesn't get on well with stop-start town driving or being held on the clutch at junctions. Owners report juddering on pull-away, jerky or delayed gear changes, and clutch packs wearing out well before the rest of the car, one owner review described needing a third clutch pack in three years. A clutch pack replacement runs from a few hundred pounds up towards £1,500, more if the mechatronic control unit has also failed. No B-MAX-specific recall found; regular gearbox fluid changes, roughly every third service, cut the risk.
A repeated owner complaint is a battery that won't hold charge, sometimes traced to moisture getting into the rear parking sensor wiring, sometimes to general wiring loom corrosion that in bad cases needs the engine out to fix, around £1,000. Windows, mirrors and dash warning lights misbehaving get mentioned alongside it. This lines up with the measured MOT data for this model, where lights and electrics is the standout fault category, though the wiring-corrosion explanation itself comes from owner reports rather than the test data.
Early 1.0-litre EcoBoost engines could lose coolant through a poorly sealed pipe, and in the worst cases coolant reached the cylinders or created a fire risk. Ford addressed this with an official recall across the EcoBoost range, including the B-MAX, so check the car's recall status before buying. Watch for a sweet coolant smell, a dropping coolant level, or rough running on any car where you can't confirm the fix was done.
Unlike a conventional cambelt, the 1.0 EcoBoost's timing belt runs inside the engine, submerged in oil, so there's no visual check you can do on it. When it wears, the debris contaminates the oil and can block oil pickups, leading to turbo or engine damage. Ford's own change interval is long, but independent garages and owners have flagged failures well inside that on some cars. A rebuild after a belt failure can run into four figures, so get the belt's service history from a Ford dealer or a specialist before buying.
The heated front windscreen, Ford's Quickclear, is reported to fail on some cars. Because the heating elements are baked into the glass, a failure means a full windscreen replacement rather than a simple part swap, and it's pricier than a standard chip repair. The embedded wiring also makes the screen more vulnerable to stone-chip damage. Not officially acknowledged by Ford as a fault, just a repeated theme in owner write-ups.
The 1.5 TDCi diesel's particulate filter is prone to blocking on cars used mostly for short trips, since it needs a sustained motorway-speed run to burn off soot. Symptoms are a DPF warning light, reduced power or limp mode, and a rougher idle. A forced regeneration or clean costs a couple of hundred pounds, but a filter that's been ignored for too long can mean a full replacement at a much higher cost.
Built from the two sections above.
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