BMW IX3 — MOT statistics 2024

The BMW IX3 failed 12.77% of 3,077 first MOT attempts in 2024 ("first-time", excluding retests). Adjusted for the age of the fleet, its initial-failure ratio is 105.6 (100 = expected for its age profile). This car is too close to call — statistically indistinguishable from normal for its age. Small sample — treat with care. But this fleet is driven far harder than average: matched on annual mileage as well as age, using 2019-2024 test chains rather than 2024 alone, the figure is 90.3, on the other side of normal. Both numbers below.

Age-adjusted peer: Audi A2 (index 105.4) — the two published results are 0.2 index points apart.

BMW IX3 common problems: what actually fails the MOT

Visibility stands out at 5.0 per 100 tests, against 3.7 per 100 tests across UK electric vehicles of the same ages.

higher bar = fails more oftenrate per 100 tests

family vs national — matched to UK electric vehicles of the same ages — top component groups, per 100 tests. Legend: This family · National avg. Combined labels: family / national average. A gap here reflects how these vehicles are driven, used and maintained as well as how they were built — an MOT defect is a test outcome, not a breakdown.

Named defects ranked by how much more often they appear than the national average — not by raw rate.

BMW IX3 MOT advisories: what gets flagged

Tyres are highest at 46.7 per 100 tests; Non-component advisories are lowest at 9.2 per 100 tests — the gap is 37.5 per 100 tests.

higher bar = flagged more oftenadvisory items per 100 initial tests

Advisories are wear the tester noted but didn't fail — what will need money soon.

Tyres, brakes and suspension: BMW IX3 against cars of the same age

Failing items per 100 initial tests, 2019-2024. The comparison group is every petrol or diesel car tested at the same age, so weight and drivetrain show up rather than fleet age.

Adjusted for how much these are actually driven

The headline index adjusts for the fleet's age. Wear, though, follows mileage: a three-year-old taxi and a three-year-old garage queen sit in the same age band. These two rows compare every car with vehicles of the same age, and then with vehicles of the same age and the same annual mileage, 2019-2024, on 3,098 tests. Both stand on the six-year corpus so they are measured on identical data — compare them with each other, not with the headline index above, which is measured on 2024 alone.

This is the rare case where usage changes the answer, not just the number: once you compare these against vehicles driven as little, the car moves from one side of normal to the other. Read the mileage-matched figure, not the headline one. One limit to keep in mind: mileage is partly a result of how often a car breaks down — one that spends weeks in the workshop covers fewer miles — so the mileage-matched figure can understate a real weakness. Tests with no usable odometer reading are left out of it.

How the BMW IX3 compares with cars of its own age and size

Not against the whole fleet — against cars of the same size class tested at the same age, 2019-2024.

Raw first-time failure rates within each age, so fleet age cannot flatter either side. A positive difference means this model fails more often than its own class at that age.

How does the BMW IX3 perform as it gets older?

The IX3 at age 3 stands out at 13.1%, against 12.4% for all vehicles of the same age.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Chart axes: car age, years · failure-rate scale 0–14%.

Takeaway: solid line: this family; dashed: all cars.

How dangerous are BMW IX3 MOT failures?

Major defects are well below the reference at 10.1 per 100 tests, against 52.8 per 100 tests nationally.

higher bar = fails more oftenrate per 100 tests

Chart values: Minor 3.2 · Major 10.1 · Dangerous 5.6.

Per 100 tests on this family. National average: Minor 14.2 · Major 52.8 · Dangerous 11.2 per 100.

Does the month of a BMW IX3 MOT matter?

Sep is highest at 15.4%; Jan is lowest at 0.0% — the gap is 15.4 percentage points.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Chart scale: -1%–33%.

bars: BMW IX3 · dashed: all class-4 cars

Takeaway: the spread between best and worst month is 15.4 percentage points — noticeable seasonality. Seasonality partly reflects registration-date clustering, not weather.

Before reading the shape: most of it is not about cars. Britain changes its registration plates twice a year, and 18.9% of these cars were first registered in March with another17.1% in September — 36% in two months against the 17% an even spread would give. An MOT falls due three years after first registration, so the buying calendar becomes the testing calendar. That shapes how many cars are tested each month — not how often they fail: the busiest months here are not the worst ones, so read the failure line on its own and the volume behind it separately.

BMW IX3 average mileage by age

At age 3, the middle half of IX3s runs from 21,208 miles to 39,615 miles, against 29,359 miles as the median.

further right = more milesmedian is the typical car; band is p25–p75

Does high mileage mean more BMW IX3 MOT failures at the same age?

Within the same age group, split by odometer (2024 MOTs), so this separates wear from age: at ages 3–5, 12.4% of those with under 40,000 miles failed first time versus 24% of those with 70,000–100,000 miles.Inside this age group, higher mileage goes with more failures.

line: median · band: middle half of the fleet (p25–p75)

A typical 3-year-old IX3 has ~29,359 miles on the clock. Much more — ask why; much less — check for gaps in the MOT history.

Where in Britain the BMW IX3 fails its MOT most

Too few tests in any single postcode area to name one, so this is the wider picture across 3,099 tests, 2019-2024.

Raw pass/fail rates, not age-adjusted: fleets differ by region. England is split north of Sheffield, between Sheffield and Oxford, and south of it.

BMW IX3 faults that come together

Tyres + Visibility stand out at 2.21×, against 1.00× if the faults were independent.

above 1.0× = more than expectedbelow 1.0× = less

Defects in «Tyres» and «Visibility» appear together 2.21× more often than chance (25 co-occurrences in the same test; 36 pairs compared).

Lift = how many times more often both groups appear on the same test than if independent. A pair is listed from 5 tests with both faults; the lift is shown from 20, and called above chance only when its 95% interval excludes 1 (see rough estimates).

BMW IX3 rust problems: where they corrode

Salt-belt exposure is well below the reference at 29th percentile, against 50th percentile as the middle of published models.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

This BMW IX3 has too few tests to judge for corrosion once age is held constant, and its owners live in areas that are gentler than most for the models we publish.

Corrosion is the one failure mode that is as much about geography as about the car. We keep the two apart on purpose: a model can look rusty simply because it is popular in Scotland, and a model can look clean simply because it is bought in Surrey. Blending them into a single score would hide which of the two is doing the work.

Exposure is this model's tests weighted by an area corrosion index built from frost days, salt load and distance to the coast — the composite validated at r = 0.42 against corrosion defects we actually record. It is published as a rank, not a raw score, because every mainstream model skews towards low-corrosion areas for the simple reason that most of Britain's cars are in the south. Susceptibility is standardised to the national age profile, so an old fleet does not get labelled a rusty model.

BMW IX3 safety recalls and how to check yours

DVSA recall campaigns stand out at 5.

bigger number = more recorded casescompare like-for-like scope, not sample size alone

recall campaigns launched per year

DVSA lists 5 safety recall campaigns for the BMW IX3, covering roughly 700 vehicles in total. A recall is the manufacturer fixing a fault for free, so an open recall on your car costs nothing to clear.

Counter-intuitive, and measured on our own data: across the 25 families published here, more recalls go with a lower MOT Risk Index (r = −0.52). Heavily recalled models are not worse cars in the test bay — an active manufacturer removes the fault before it becomes an MOT failure.

Check whether a specific car has an outstanding recall — free, by registration — at DVSA's recall service. Source: DVSA vehicle safety recalls (check-vehicle-recalls.service.gov.uk), OGL.

BMW IX3 MOT: quick answers

BMW IX3 MOT Risk Index stands out at 105.6, against 100 for a car with the same age profile.

below 100 is betterabove 100 is worse100 = normal for this model at that age

What is the BMW IX3 first-time MOT pass rate?

87.23% of first attempts passed in 2024 (3,077 tests). This is the first-time figure: retests after repair are excluded. Basis: first-time, excluding retests.

Why does this number differ from other sites?

Other sites often report a pass rate that includes retests or counts all attempts. Our 12.77% figure is the first-time initial failure rate, using 3,077 primary tests as the denominator (first-time, excluding retests). The age-adjusted MOT initial-failure ratio 105.6 is shown separately because raw rates compare fleet age as well as cars.

Compare the BMW IX3 with other cars

Volkswagen Transporter is highest at 105.7; Audi A2 is lowest at 105.4 — the gap is 0.3 points.

below 100 is betterabove 100 is worse100 = normal for this model at that age

Same brand

All BMW MOT statisticsBMW X2 MOT statsBMW Z3 MOT stats

Similar risk

Volkswagen Transporter (index 105.7)Audi A2 (index 105.4)Peugeot 508 (index 105.4)

Same size class

how Jaguar XJS compareshow Honda Stepwagon compareshow Mercedes-Benz CL compares

By failure group

BMW IX3 lamps, reflectors and electrics failuresBMW IX3 tyres failuresBMW IX3 visibility failures