Nissan Qashqai vs Ford Kuga
The Nissan Qashqai is the bigger presence in the 2024 public UK MOT record, with more than a million recorded tests. The Ford Kuga is the cleaner performer. Across the full 2024 sample, the Qashqai passed 75.39% first time, while the Kuga passed 82.09%. That is not a rounding-error result. It is a 6.70 percentage-point gap in favour of the Ford.
Pass-rate split
The headline number is blunt: the Kuga wins.
The Qashqai recorded
That makes the Kuga
The Qashqai’s defence is scale. It has more than twice as many tests in this comparison, and that huge footprint includes plenty of older, cheaper, harder-used examples. The Kuga’s defence is better: it still has a very large sample, and the result is comfortably ahead.
So the first answer is easy. If you are comparing average 2024 MOT outcomes, the Ford Kuga is the safer bet.
The second answer is more useful. The Qashqai does not simply fail in the same way as the Kuga but more often. Its failure pattern points harder at front-end wear, steering joints, suspension joints and CV boots. That has a different cost shape from the Kuga’s more tyre, brake, lamp, wiper and screen-heavy list.
Where they fail
The Qashqai’s top failure reasons are not subtle. The all-age top five are:
- Suspension joint dust cover severely deteriorated: 43,185
- Steering ball joint with excessive wear or free play: 37,127
- Suspension pin, bush or joint excessively worn: 32,548
- Steering rack gaiter or ball-joint dust cover damaged or deteriorated: 30,401
- Rear registration plate lamp or light source missing or inoperative: 30,077
That is a very specific garage conversation. The Qashqai’s failure table is dominated by suspension and steering protection parts, then the wear those parts are meant to prevent. Dust covers and gaiters sound minor when they are still just rubber, but once they split, they invite dirt and water into joints. Leave them long enough and the job stops being a rubber boot and becomes a worn joint, poor tracking, tyre wear, knocks, or a bigger front-end repair.
The Kuga’s top five are different:
- Brake lining or pad worn below 1.5mm: 9,983
- Tyre tread depth below the legal requirement: 9,566
- Lamp missing or inoperative: 7,683
- Rear registration plate lamp or light source missing or inoperative: 7,420
- Windscreen or window damaged or seriously discoloured but not adversely affecting the driver’s view: 6,380
That does not make the Kuga fault-free. It means its biggest recorded failures look more like consumables and visibility items. Brake pads, tyres, lamps, wipers and glass are still money, but they are easier to inspect before buying and easier to price.
The Qashqai’s list makes me more cautious because it points under the car. If a used Qashqai has repeated advisories for dust covers, bushes, joints, springs or CV boots, do not treat a fresh MOT as a clean bill of health. It may just mean the cheapest urgent item was done and the rest is waiting.
Cost orientation is the useful split. A Kuga that needs front pads and two tyres is annoying but easy to price. A Qashqai with worn steering play, split gaiters and tired suspension bushes can turn into a more open-ended bill, especially if seized bolts, alignment and uneven tyre wear join the party.
Cohort tells
The by-year-band split is where the Kuga’s win becomes more convincing, but also where the warning about sample size matters.
For pre-2018 cars, the Qashqai logged 793,128 tests and passed 71.96% first time. The Kuga logged 348,742 tests and passed 80.34%. That is the real used-family-SUV battleground, and the Ford is miles cleaner on the pass-rate board.
The pre-2018 Qashqai also carries the same failure personality as the all-age list: suspension joint dust covers, steering ball joints, suspension bushes, steering rack gaiters, number-plate lamps and CV boots. That is the age band where cheap examples live, and it is the band where buyers are most likely to be tempted by a tidy cabin and a sensible price. The record says to get underneath before getting excited.
For 2018-2020 cars, the gap nearly disappears. The Qashqai passes 87.84% from 181,813 tests. The Kuga passes 87.40% from 114,379 tests. That is effectively a condition-first fight. In this age band, the Qashqai’s top failures shift towards brake pads, wiper blades, tyres, windscreen damage and some remaining dust-cover issues. The Kuga looks similar: pads, tyre tread, wipers, screen damage, damaged tyres and washer faults.
That 2018-2020 split is important because it stops the verdict becoming lazy. A well-kept 2018-2020 Qashqai is not automatically a worse buy than a same-age Kuga. The Qashqai is fractionally ahead in that band. The gap is only 0.44 percentage points, though, so do not use it as a badge excuse.
For 2021-on cars, the Qashqai passes 90.65% from 29,559 tests. The Kuga passes 90.19% from just 479 tests. The Kuga number is too small to carry much weight. The newest Kuga sample in this slice is tiny compared with the Qashqai, so the honest read is that both are around the 90% mark, while the Qashqai gives us a much firmer sample.
Mileage tells
Mileage is the part that makes the Kuga result stronger, not weaker.
The Qashqai’s average mileage at test is 75,618. The Kuga’s is 69,522. On the surface, that gives the Nissan a possible excuse: it is arriving at test with about 6,096 more miles on the clock.
But that does not explain the whole result. The pre-2018 band is the clearest comparison. The Qashqai averages 85,942 miles and passes 71.96%. The Kuga averages 79,150 miles and passes 80.34%. Yes, the Nissan is higher-mileage, but an 8.38-point pass-rate gap is too large to wave away as mileage alone.
The 2018-2020 band is tighter and more balanced. The Qashqai averages 38,877 miles and passes 87.84%. The Kuga averages 40,427 miles and passes 87.40%. Here, the Ford actually has slightly higher average mileage, and the two pass rates are almost level. That is the cleanest evidence that modern, mid-age examples are close when condition is comparable.
For 2021-on cars, the Qashqai averages 25,324 miles and the Kuga averages 27,051. Again, both pass around 90%, but the Kuga sample is only 479 tests. Treat that as a useful hint, not a verdict.
The mileage read is this: older Kugas look tougher in the record; middle-aged examples are close; newest examples are too uneven in sample size for a strong claim. The full-result winner remains the Kuga because the used market contains a lot of older examples, and that is where the Ford’s lead is largest.
The numbers we trust
The numbers here come from the 2024 public UK MOT record as model-level summaries. That means they are very good for pattern spotting, and bad for pretending every individual car behaves like the average.
The strongest figures in this comparison are the full-model pass rates and the pre-2018 cohort. The sample sizes are large enough to be meaningful: more than one million Qashqai tests, 463,600 Kuga tests, 793,128 pre-2018 Qashqai tests and 348,742 pre-2018 Kuga tests.
The weakest figure is the 2021-on Kuga cohort. There are only 479 tests in that band. It is still reported because the brief requires the cohort split and because the number exists, but it should not be used to make a confident newest-car judgement.
That is the sharp owner takeaway. The Qashqai is not a bad car because it appears more often with dust covers, bushes, ball joints and CV boots. It is a car that needs a stricter underside check. The Kuga is not cheap to run just because its top failures look simpler. Tyres, pads, springs, lamps and screen work still add up quickly on a family SUV.
If you are buying either, read the MOT history for repeats. One worn tyre is life. Three years of tyre advisories, steering play, split gaiters or broken lamps is owner behaviour. That is the bit the badge cannot fix.