MOT Risk Index.co.uk

Ferrari F355 — MOT statistics 2024

The Ferrari F355 failed 7.34% of 722 first MOT attempts in 2024 ("first-time", excluding retests). Adjusted for the age of the fleet, its initial-failure ratio is 20.7 (100 = expected for its age profile). This car fails its MOT about 79% less often than expected for its age. Small sample — treat with care.

MOT risk index 20.7, 95% CI 15.9–26.7 (100 = national average) 100 20.7 0 200
Index
20.7
100 = age-normal
Raw fail rate
7.34%
n = 722
Dangerous /100
1
national ≈11
Rank
16 of 761
lower index = better

Age-adjusted peer: Aston Martin DBS (index 20.6) — the two published results are 0.1 index points apart.

Ferrari F355 common problems: what actually fails the MOT

Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment are well below the reference at 4.3 per 100 tests, against 31.5 per 100 tests across UK vehicles of the same ages.

higher bar = fails more oftenrate per 100 tests

Ferrari F355 common problems: what actually fails the MOT — 2024 UK MOT data

family vs national — matched to UK 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.

Component-group comparison table

Each ratio carries a 95% interval. With 6 groups compared here, roughly one apparent difference in twenty is chance alone.

GroupThis familyCases behind itUK, same agesFamily / national
Emissions & leaks6.52889.30.70×0.62–0.78
Lamps & electrical4.318931.50.14×0.12–0.16
Visibility1.87811.90.15×0.12–0.18
Brakes1.77522.10.08×0.06–0.10
Steering1.4617.20.19×0.15–0.24
Body & structure1.15016.40.07×0.05–0.09
Named defects — items per 100 initial tests, this family vs UK national average; this model measured on 4,447 tests, 2019-2024, national column 2024
What failedper 100 tests (this family)per 100 tests (UK average)ratio family / UKWhat to check
Emissions levels exceed default limitsEmissions levels exceed default limits2.590.475.56×Watch for smoke on a cold start — emissions failures are costly
Lambda coefficient outside the default limits or…Lambda coefficient outside the default limits or the range specified by the manufacturer2.230.534.22×Ask the seller about: Lambda coefficient outside the default limits or the range s
Emissions levels exceed the manufacturer's…Emissions levels exceed the manufacturer's specified limits1.150.235.02×Watch for smoke on a cold start — emissions failures are costly
Aim of a headlamp is not within limits laid down…The aim of a headlamp is not within limits laid down in the requirements1.242.570.48×Try every light and switch — lamps are a top failure

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

Ferrari F355 MOT advisories: what gets flagged

Tyres are highest at 9.7 per 100 tests; Emissions & leaks are lowest at 1.9 per 100 tests — the gap is 7.8 per 100 tests.

higher bar = flagged more oftenadvisory items per 100 initial tests

Ferrari F355 MOT advisories: what gets flagged — 2024 UK MOT data
Advisory rates table
GroupAdvisories per 100
Tyres9.7
Suspension3.1
Brakes2.7
Emissions & leaks1.9

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

If a car like this fails, does it fail again?

A failure rate does not say whether a failure is a one-off or the start of something. This follows the same vehicles into their next ordinary MOT a year later — retests after a repair are excluded, because they follow a failure by definition. 2019-2024.

After this year's testFails next yearVehicles followed
It failed5.8%138
It passed6.6%2,498

A failed test does not clearly change next year's odds here (5.8% against 6.6%): the difference is within the margin of error. The failure most likely to come back is noise, emissions and leaks — 10.3% of those vehicles fail again next year. Some of this is the vehicle and some is the owner: a car that was let go once tends to be let go again. One caveat: a car that fails may be sold or scrapped rather than tested again, so these figures describe the vehicles that came back.

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 3,879 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.

Standardised forIndexReading
Age only24.1fails less often than expected
Age and annual mileage29.1fails less often than vehicles driven as much
Share doing under 3,000 miles a year95.2%a large low-use population — often second vehicles or cars kept for occasional use

Mileage matters here: matching on how much these are driven moves the figure by 5.0 points — this fleet is driven less than the vehicles it is measured against, so the age-only view flatters it — but it does not change which side of normal the car sits on. 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 does the Ferrari F355 perform as it gets older?

The F355 at age 20 is well below the reference at 8.9%, against 41.0% for all vehicles of the same age.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

How does the Ferrari F355 perform as it gets older? — 2024 UK MOT data

Chart axes: car age, years · failure-rate scale 0–47%.

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

Data table
AgeFerrari F355All vehiclesGap
208.9%41.0%-32.1 pp

How dangerous are Ferrari F355 MOT failures?

Major defects are well below the reference at 15.4 per 100 tests, against 52.8 per 100 tests nationally.

higher bar = fails more oftenrate per 100 tests

How dangerous are Ferrari F355 MOT failures? — 2024 UK MOT data
Severity table
SeverityThis family /100National /100Family / national
Minor2.4514.220.17×
Major15.4052.750.29×
Dangerous1.2111.150.11×

Chart values: Minor 2.5 · Major 15.4 · Dangerous 1.2.

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

Does the month of a Ferrari F355 MOT matter?

Dec is highest at 12.3%; Jul is lowest at 5.6% — the gap is 6.6 percentage points.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Does the month of a Ferrari F355 MOT matter? — 2024 UK MOT data

Chart scale: 4%–33%.

bars: Ferrari F355 · dashed: all class-4 cars

Month-by-month table
MonthFerrari F355All vehiclesGap
Jan11.17%31.12%-20.0 pp
Feb6.06%29.99%-23.9 pp
Mar8.57%28.26%-19.7 pp
Apr11.14%29.78%-18.6 pp
May7.17%28.79%-21.6 pp
Jun7.73%28.15%-20.4 pp
Jul5.64%29.33%-23.7 pp
Aug8.99%29.2%-20.2 pp
Sep8.35%28.19%-19.8 pp
Oct9.51%30.34%-20.8 pp
Nov9.59%30.58%-21.0 pp
Dec12.28%29.33%-17.0 pp

Takeaway: the spread between best and worst month is 6.6 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.

Ferrari F355 average mileage by age

At age 20+, the middle half of F355s runs from 24,353 miles to 47,689 miles, against 33,626 miles as the median.

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

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

Mileage by age (p25 / median / p75)
Agep25Medianp75Tests
20+24,35333,62647,689157

A typical 20+-year-old F355 has ~33,626 miles on the clock. Much more — ask why; much less — check for gaps in the MOT history.

Where in Britain the Ferrari F355 fails its MOT most

Slough area is highest at 16.5%; Medway area is lowest at 4.1% — the gap is 12.3 percentage points.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Toughest areas% failingvs model overall
Slough (SL)16.46%+7.9 pp
Easiest areas% failingvs model overall
Medway (ME)4.14%-4.4 pp

Every dot is a postcode area — size = how many were tested there, colour = share failing. These figures are not age-adjusted: coastal and rural areas often run older fleets and salted roads, so higher raw fail rates do not automatically mean a worse local stock of this model.

Map labels: Scotland · N. England · Wales · London · S. West.

Ferrari F355 faults that come together

Brakes + Emissions & leaks stand out at 11.41×, against 1.00× if the faults were independent.

above 1.0× = more than expectedbelow 1.0× = less

Group AGroup BTogetherLift
BrakesNoise, emissions and leaks2411.41× (rough estimate)
Noise, emissions and leaksVisibility228.74× (rough estimate)
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipmentNoise, emissions and leaks317.86× (rough estimate)
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipmentVisibility19too few (rough estimate)
BrakesLamps, reflectors and electrical equipment17too few (rough estimate)
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipmentSteering13too few (rough estimate)
Identification of the vehicleLamps, reflectors and electrical equipment11too few (rough estimate)
Body, chassis, structureLamps, reflectors and electrical equipment11too few (rough estimate)
Identification of the vehicleNoise, emissions and leaks10too few (rough estimate)
BrakesVisibility9too few (rough estimate)
Noise, emissions and leaksSteering9too few (rough estimate)
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipmentSuspension8too few (rough estimate)
Body, chassis, structureNoise, emissions and leaks8too few (rough estimate)
BrakesSteering7too few (rough estimate)
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipmentSeat belts and supplementary restraint systems5too few (rough estimate)
BrakesIdentification of the vehicle5too few (rough estimate)
Identification of the vehicleVisibility5too few (rough estimate)
SteeringVisibility5too few (rough estimate)
Noise, emissions and leaksTyres5too few (rough estimate)

Defects in «Brakes» and «Noise, emissions and leaks» appear together 11.41× more often than chance (24 co-occurrences in the same test; 55 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).

Ferrari F355 MOT repair costs

The MOT-failure repair budget per test runs from £21.57 to £40.98, against £54.85 for the test itself.

bigger number = costs morepounds per test, MOT-failing faults only

MOT repairs, budget
£22–41
per test, repairs only
The test itself
£54.85
statutory cap, unchanged since 2010
How the figure is built: chance of failing × typical price of that repair
ComponentFails per 100 testsTypical repairIts priceContribution
Noise, emissions and leaks6.5 (nat. 3.67)Exhaust rear silencer£200£13.00
Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment4.3 (nat. 18.09)Battery replacement (standard 12V lead-acid)£140£6.02
Brakes1.7 (nat. 11.25)Front brake pads (parts + labour, typical hatchback)£150£2.55

Multiply how often each component fails on this model by what that repair usually costs, and you get the amount an owner should expect to budget per test for MOT-failing faults only — roughly £22 to £41, on top of the test fee itself. It is a budgeting figure, not a quote: the spread between a set of pads and a set of discs is most of the range.

Prices are modal quotes from a hand-kept catalogue of published UK garage guides — we do not scrape the booking sites, their terms forbid it, so this list is short and updated by hand with a source and date against each line. Each line prices one typical repair in that group, not a full remedy, and only groups our catalogue actually covers are counted. The contrast worth noticing is the second card: the legal maximum for the test has been £54.85 since 2010, while the repairs it uncovers have followed inflation the whole time.

For scale from a different direction: Warrantywise, which sees used-car warranty claims rather than test failures, puts the average claim at £2,052 across the ten highest-claim models it ranks and £539 for Honda, the lowest-claim make in its index (Warrantywise index 2026, 1.6 million claims, cars aged 3–15). Those sit an order of magnitude above the figures in this table, and the gap is the point: a warranty claim is a gearbox or an engine, which almost never fails an MOT, while the faults that do fail one are corrosion, lamps and tyres, which no warranty pays for. The two numbers answer different questions and neither replaces the other.

Ferrari F355 rust problems: where they corrode

Salt-belt exposure is well below the reference at 12th percentile, against 50th percentile as the middle of published models.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

How it rusts
—
not enough tests to publish
Salt Belt exposure
12th
percentile among the models published here, from its tests across 0 postcode areas

This Ferrari F355 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.

What will fail next on a Ferrari F355?

Noise, emissions and leaks after a failure at age 20+ are highest at 6.3%; Steering after a passed at age 20+ is lowest at 1.2% — the gap is 5.1 percentage points.

higher = more likelypercentage is the observed transition probability

Probability of each component failing at the next test, by age and last result
AgeLast testMost likely next failuresCars tracked
20+passedNoise, emissions and leaks 2.9% · Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 1.7% · Steering 1.2%2,719
20+advisoryLamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 2.9% · Noise, emissions and leaks 2.9%242 (rough estimate)
20+failureNoise, emissions and leaks 6.3% · Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment 3.1% · Visibility 2.5%286 (rough estimate)

The same chains, cut differently: given a car's age and how its last test went, which component most often causes trouble at the following one.

The pattern that repeats across every family: a failure at one test roughly doubles the chance of a failure on the same component at the next one, and an advisory sits about half-way between a clean pass and a failure. Age bands in years; probabilities are per car, not per defect item.

Ferrari F355 ownership: what six years of MOTs show

Clean three-test streak is highest at 87.4%; Repeated the same advisory is lowest at 3.0% — the gap is 84.4 percentage points.

higher = larger sharecompare shares in percentage points

Fails /10k miles
1.307
miles actually driven
Clean streaks
87.37%
3+ tests, nothing noted
Odometer anomaly
11.134%
reading went backwards

Per mile driven, not per year. Dividing failures by the miles that actually went onto the odometers between consecutive tests gives 1.307 failures per 10,000 miles, on a median of 214 miles a year across 941 chains. This is the number to compare between models — an annual rate quietly rewards cars that barely leave the drive.

Two populations hide inside one model. 87.37% of these cars strung together three or more tests with nothing recorded at all, while 2.95% carried the same advisory three times or more — the same fault, noted, ignored, noted again. When you buy used you are buying one of those two histories, and the MOT record shows which.

Odometer anomalies: 11.134% of 952 chains show a reading lower than the previous test, with a median drop of 19,431 miles. We call this an anomaly and not fraud on purpose — instrument swaps, imports, unit mix-ups and keying errors all land in the same bucket. Obvious typos (drops under 100 miles or over 90% of the reading) are already excluded.

Ferrari F355 safety recalls and how to check yours

DVSA recall campaigns stand out at 4.

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

recall campaigns launched per year

Ferrari F355 recall campaigns launched per year — 2024 UK MOT data
Campaigns launched per year for the Ferrari F355. Source: DVSA vehicle safety recalls. Chart values: 1998: 3 · 1999: 0 · 2000: 0 · 2001: 0 · 2002: 0 · 2003: 0 · 2004: 0 · 2005: 0 · 2006: 0 · 2007: 0 · 2008: 0 · 2009: 1.
Most recent safety recall campaigns for the Ferrari F355
ReferenceLaunchedVehiclesConcern
R/2009/06409/11/20091,231RISK OF FIRE
R/1998/04918/06/1998102STEERING COLUMN SHAFT CLAMP BOLT MAY HAVE BEEN INSUFFICIENTLY TIGHTENED
R/1998/04818/06/199822POSSIBLE DAMAGE TO FUEL TANK DURING VEHICLE ASSEMBLY COULD RESULT IN A FUEL LEAK
R/1998/00627/01/1998326POSSIBLE FUEL LEAK

DVSA lists 4 safety recall campaigns for the Ferrari F355, covering roughly 1,681 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.

Ferrari F355 MOT: quick answers

Ferrari F355 MOT Risk Index is well below the reference at 20.7, 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 Ferrari F355 first-time MOT pass rate?
92.66% of first attempts passed in 2024 (722 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 7.34% figure is the first-time initial failure rate, using 722 primary tests as the denominator (first-time, excluding retests). The age-adjusted MOT initial-failure ratio 20.7 is shown separately because raw rates compare fleet age as well as cars.

Compare the Ferrari F355 with other cars

Aston Martin V8 is highest at 21.2; Nissan GT-R is lowest at 19.5 — the gap is 1.7 points.

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

Same brand

All Ferrari MOT statisticsFerrari California MOT statsFerrari 488 MOT stats

Similar risk

Aston Martin DBS (index 20.6)Aston Martin V8 (index 21.2)Nissan GT-R (index 19.5)

Same size class

how Porsche 928 compareshow Toyota Aqua compareshow Lamborghini Urus compares

By area

Ferrari F355 MOT failure rate by postcode area

By failure group

Ferrari F355 body, chassis and structure failuresFerrari F355 brakes failuresFerrari F355 vehicle identification failuresFerrari F355 lamps, reflectors and electrics failuresFerrari F355 noise, emissions and leaks failuresFerrari F355 steering failuresFerrari F355 tyres failuresFerrari F355 visibility failures


Data details & how to cite

Scope: class-4 vehicles (cars), initial tests only, outcomes pass / fail / fixed-on-the-spot at the station (PRS counts towards the failure rate — the defect was present at arrival). Index = observed initial failures ÷ failures expected for this fleet's exact age profile, ×100; margin of error is a 95% confidence interval. Covers ALL generations together — a 3-year-old and a 15-year-old are very different cars; a generation split is on the roadmap. Dataset release dataset_release_id=dvsa-2024-v2, frozen baseline; headline claim_id=family-stats:ferrari-f355:dvsa-2024-v2. Full method: methodology.

Cite: MOT Risk Index (2026). Ferrari F355 MOT statistics 2024 (data release dvsa-2024-v2; downloadable dataset motriskindex-families-2024-v5, doi:10.5281/zenodo.22975051). https://motriskindex.co.uk/cars/ferrari-f355/ · Published 2026-07-30.