Heat treatment of cast ductile iron (DI) to ausferritic ductile iron (ADI) is known to increase fatigue properties. However, the surface roughness of the cast material is also of significant importance. In this investigation, test rods with seven different surface qualities were cast from the same melt i.e. with same chemical composition. The surfaces of the test rods were varied by a number of parameters; grain size of the moulding sand, coated or non-coated mould surfaces, as-cast or machined and polished, shot peened or not. In addition, a reference material in conventional DI was cast and tested. All eight series were subjected to high-cycle fatigue bending tests. The results show that surface defects, such as micro porosity and minor inclusions drastically decrease the fatigue properties. For some ADI materials the stress amplitude limit was actually lower compared to the non-heat treated DI. The machined, polished and shot-peened material demonstrated the best fatigue properties, which is as expected.