All generations and engines together · 111,216 MOT tests in the 2025 data · typical mileage at age 7: 48k
Better than most superminis for its age, and one of the best per mile driven. Watch brakes and suspension. A solid 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.
On early Mk2 cars (2005-2010) a manufacturing defect in the welded rear torsion beam can throw the rear wheel alignment out, so the outer edges of the rear tyres wear down fast and unevenly, sometimes within a year or two of the car being new. Some owners got replacement tyres under warranty, but the only proper fix is a new rear beam. It doesn't seem to have followed through to later generations. Repair is roughly £300-600 for the beam and labour, more if tyres need replacing too.
A persistent rattle from behind the dashboard, most often reported on 2005/2006-built cars, needs the dash stripped out to trace and fix. Some dealers were reluctant to do the job under warranty because it's fiddly and doesn't affect anything mechanical. It's a nuisance rather than a safety issue, and a specialist trim shop can usually sort it for a few hundred pounds in labour.
A run of Mk3 (2010-2017) cars, including Swift Sport models, have gone through clutches unusually early, in one case after only 200 miles and another after three months of ownership. Dealers initially blamed driver error before Suzuki replaced the clutches under goodwill, which is exactly why owners and dealers still argue about it: is it a parts problem or heavy-handed drivers landing on a small sample of unlucky cars? Out of warranty, a clutch kit and fitting runs roughly £400-800.
On 2017-on cars, owners have reported recurring 'system warning' messages knocking out lane-departure and collision-avoidance features, sometimes needing repeated dealer visits with only a temporary fix from resetting the car. A windscreen crack appearing with no obvious cause has also been reported, and replacing the glass means the ADAS camera has to be recalibrated, a job that doesn't always go cleanly and can leave lane-departure warning not working properly on ordinary roads. There's also a report of an ABS fault triggered simply by fitting a 15-inch spacesaver spare on a car built for 16-inch wheels, which needed the whole ABS module replaced. None of this is manufacturer-acknowledged as a fault. Recalibration or a module swap typically costs somewhere between £150 and £500 depending on what's needed.
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. 39,234 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 (Superminis), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.