All generations and engines together · 164,894 MOT tests in the 2025 data · typical mileage at age 7: 39k
Middling for its age among city cars, though worse than most per mile driven. Watch brakes and suspension. A fair used buy, provided its MOT history has no repeating brakes advisories.
Split by first-registration year. Cars registered in a changeover year can belong to either generation.
Owner folklore from forums and the motoring press, with how well each report stands up. Most of it never shows up in an MOT, which is why this section exists at all.
Owners repeatedly report the rear parking brake mechanism seizing or sticking on, which drags a caliper and chews through pads and discs fast. It shows up anywhere from 40k miles to high mileage, and one owner had a caliper replaced twice on the same car. Brakes are the measured MOT fault for this model, and this is the folklore version of it: a mechanical sticking fault that wears the car down between MOTs rather than one that always fails the test outright.
The clutchless AMT gearbox fitted to some automatic Picantos (badged as a manual with no clutch pedal) is criticised for a slow, jerky pull-away from a standstill, and some owners report it occasionally refusing to select drive or reverse when in a hurry. This is a characteristic of the dry single-clutch design rather than a fault that develops with age, but it puts some owners off buying used. A test drive on a cold, stationary start shows it up immediately.
Several manual-gearbox owners report a judder through the clutch pedal, worse in cold or wet weather and when reversing uphill, with dealers sometimes denying anything is wrong. A handful of cases of the clutch failing very early, in one case at just over 5,000 miles and another at 33,000 miles, suggest it is not purely a driving-style issue. No manufacturer acknowledgement or fix has been reported; treat it as a known grumble rather than a confirmed defect.
Some 2018-model-year Picantos with the drive-by-wire throttle have shown poor or hesitant response to the accelerator, particularly in the 3,000-4,000rpm band, traced to the electrical connection between the pedal sensor and the throttle body. It has appeared as early as the first service on affected cars, so it looks like a supplier or software issue rather than wear. No recall has been reported; a dealer replaced the faulty part under warranty in the cases seen.
The combined touchscreen, satnav and reversing camera unit on higher-spec (Chilli/GT-Line) cars has been reported to fail completely, sometimes within weeks of purchase, with owners facing long waits (in one case eight-plus weeks) for a replacement unit due to parts availability. It is an inconvenience rather than a safety issue on most trims, but on cars that rely on the screen for the reversing camera it is worth checking. No pattern of a manufacturer-wide fix has been reported.
On the oldest Picantos, there are scattered reports of crankshaft pulley bolts shearing or the pulley coming loose from the crank on 2004-2006 cars, and separately a case of oil pump and sump corrosion causing engine seizure at around 40,000 miles. These are old cars now and reports are thin, so it is hard to say how widespread this really was versus a handful of unlucky examples; owners and forums are split on whether it's a real pattern or bad luck.
Ranked from this model’s own MOT record, then from what owners report.
Saveable checklistThe physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
The physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
The physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
The physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
Drawn from the reports above rather than the MOT data. These are the model-specific ones.
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. 55,808 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.
Same segment (City cars), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.
Head to head with the other popular cars in its class on reliability and common faults.