If you are considering buying a used Ford Transit Custom, there are several major reliability issues worth knowing about first. Our garage database tracks 4 known faults for this model, 3 of them rated high severity. Every one below is a repair bill a seller has good reason not to mention.
Found a Ford Transit Custom for sale?
Paste the advert and we read it against its known faults, its MOT history and the DVLA record, and tell you what the seller has not. Free, about a minute, no card.
Check a Ford Transit Custom advert (free) →One owner each, in their own words rewritten as a line, and not counted in our risk scoring. A fault joins the list above once a second report or an editorial source backs it.
Sellers rarely admit these faults outright
We track 12 specific phrases sellers use in adverts to soft-pedal these exact issues. Paste any Ford Transit Custom advert and we check it in seconds.
Check an advert now (free) →An overdue cambelt is the most expensive thing a seller can fail to mention on a used Transit Custom. These are the figures UK specialists work to.
Chain driven. Listen for rattles on cold start which indicate chain stretch or tensioner wear.
Ford revised the 2.0 EcoBlue wet belt interval down to 6 years / 100,000 miles from up to 10 years / 240,000 km, because fuel dilution of the oil during DPF regeneration degrades the belt early. Many independent specialists recommend replacement at 60,000-90,000 miles.
Always confirm against the vehicle handbook. Intervals vary by engine, and several manufacturers revised theirs after failures in service.
The Ford Transit Custom has 4 known faults in our database, 3 of them rated high severity. The most serious are fuel system (an issue with certain third-party diesel fuel injectors supplied for the 2.0-litre) and engine (wet timing belt stretching and stripping teeth causing oil strainer blockage). None of them makes the car a bad buy on its own; the risk is a seller who knows and says nothing.
Three stand out. Fuel system: an issue with certain third-party diesel fuel injectors supplied for the 2.0-litre EcoBlue diesel. Engine: wet timing belt stretching and stripping teeth causing oil strainer blockage and engine failure (typically 60000 to 100000 miles). Engine: oil pump failure / pressure loss causing catastrophic engine failure (typically 70000 to 120000 miles). The full list above is grouped by generation, with typical mileage and a rough repair cost for each.
No Ford Transit Custom year is a write-off, but the 1st Gen (2012 to 2023) carries the most serious faults: fuel system and engine. Year matters less than whether the specific car has had the known fixes, so check the history for them.
Ask the seller about the fuel system and engine faults on this page and whether they have been fixed, with invoices. On the test drive watch for loss of power, low oil pressure message and sudden power loss. Read the MOT history for repeat advisories, then paste the advert into the free check, which reads it against all 4 known faults before you travel. Check a Ford Transit Custom advert →
Owners report 30.8 mpg on average across the Ford Transit Custom engines with data, about 73% of the official combined figure. The gap between official and real-world economy varies a lot by engine, so the Real MPG page lists every engine and generation separately, from 256 owner submissions. Ford Transit Custom Real MPG by engine →
Looking at a Ford Transit Custom right now? Check the advert before you go and see it.
If you used to check the Honest John “Good & Bad” section before the site closed in 2026, this page is where that information now lives. We rebuilt the Ford Transit Custom owner-report history from the archived Honest John dataset, added our own research, specialist and owner-club sources and DVSA recall data, and we keep it free. Each fault above is badged with its source. The same data feeds our free advert check, which reads a listing against every known fault for the exact engine and year.
CarAdCheck is not affiliated with Honest John or Volkswagen Financial Services. What happened to Honest John, and where each feature lives now.
Knowing what a Ford Transit Custom goes wrong with is half of it. The rest is reading the advert and checking the car's history before you hand any money over.