Winseer:
Is it really true that if you put it in early, and it fails, you then can’t drive to get another car with the one that’s failed?
This is what I had intended - MOT next week or so, expecting it to fail, original expiry 31st. I was giving myself 2 weeks to drive around finding a replacement that accepts old car as trade in.
Depends on failure tbh.
The MOT station has a right to stop you driving a dangerous vehicle away and will mark a dangerous fail on the computer, but in the same respect, you can get pulled anytime with a valid mot and have a vehicle check, ever heard of 3 points for a bald tyre etc?
My last mot failure was for scratches on the windscreen, I explained that it would be replaced but wanted to see what else it’d fail on before forking out a fortune on a windscreen, passed everything else, failed on windscreen.
If you test your car in last month and it passes, you can get upto 13mth mot, but if it fails, retest will only give 12mths.
As for your insurance Orys, expect to get anally raped, insurance companies love an excuse to rip us offski
I get a free halfords MOT, which I was just going to use to find out what was wrong with it. Since Halfords can’t actually fix the car, I was going to put it into the normal place I get my MOT done, which of course would mean paying anyway. I get a discount for being a regular there. The test they give me for that payment will however be a FIRST test if I were to say:-
Halfords fail it on Handbrake & Emissions (example)
I take it to other garage, and pay for repairs to be done.
I then MOT it either at the same garage, or another one doing a better discount.
Since I know what needs fixing, it has all been done first time around on the MOT I paid for, so I get a NEW mot dated March 31st 2013.
Is there a chance that halfords report say, 2 faults but another MOT station finds another 3, and I end up with an unwanted liability anyway?
Oh, can I offset the cost against end of year income tax PAYE along with mileage & meal expenses?
I don’t think you have to be Self Employed to get offsets.
All MOT’s are computerised now, so a fail is recorded as a fail on the national database.
As I said though, as long as it’s not dangerous, as far as I know, your old mot stands until expiry date.
as an mot tester, yep a VOSA approved class 4 and 7 vehicle inspector . i can tell you all a couple of thing’s
1, a car doesn’t have to have an mot for the first 3 yr’s, but you could buy a brand new car from the dealer, and then get it mot’d straight away. but you would then need one every yr after that.
2, you can have a vehicle mot’d when ever you want, we do a lot of mot’s for a dealer, and most of them are part way through a mot and then we put another one on it, which then overwrite’s the then currant one.
3, you can mot a vehicle up to 28 day’s before the expiry date, to preserve the orginial expiry date, so you can get 13month’s mot.
4, if your car fail’s the mot and has no remaning test left, the car doesn’t have a mot on it even though it has had an mot test, you’ed be surprised at how mant people think that a mot fail mean’s you have a mot an you can drive it leaglly on the road
5, we do not have the power to stop you taking a mot failure (including if it has a dangerous marker on it) away from the garage.
starfighter:
Re point four. I imagine that this was something you could get away with in the days before the computerised database.
Still allowed to take it for repairs etc.
It is generally an offence to use on a public road, a vehicle of testable age that doesn’t have a current test certificate, except when:
taking it to a test station for an MOT test booked in advance
bringing it away from a test station after it has failed the MOT test, to a place of repair
taking it to a place, by previous arrangement, where problems that caused the vehicle to fail its MOT test, can be repaired
bringing it away from a place where the problems with the vehicle have been repaired
Even in the above circumstances you may still be prosecuted for driving an unroadworthy vehicle if it doesn’t comply with various regulations affecting its construction and use. Your car insurance may also be invalid.
See above.
However, if the vehicle is a danger on the road, get it transported. Just think how you would go off on one if your wife, kids, family were hit by an unroadworthy motor…
Should all this be accurate, I would have to sign on as unemployed until I get my tax rebate cheque in April/May.
I can’t take the chance that my car might fail for more repairs than I can afford (not having got enough work so far this year) and would risk getting an IN on my clean licence, thereby screwing me for getting any more work period!
What’s the point of a free MOT if one doesn’t have the money for immediate repairs? - It’s nothing more than a liability.
Looks like I can’t afford to goto work anymore at this rate. Available for work, but can’t afford to get there anymore.
DSS can keep offering me work I’ll turn down until I get something on my doorstep. Since they don’t pay towards my transport, they can’t disqualify me for not being available because I don’t have something that costs.
But if your car isn’t fit to pass an MOT, it’s not fit to be on the road anyway is it? if a vehicle examiner checks it over, which does happen sometimes, you’re in the brown stuff anyway.
A yearly MOT is not all that’s needed when running a car, you should at least make sure your car remains legal.
Not being funny but cant you not get a bus/taxi/cycle to work
having a car isnt the be all and end all, even if its costs you a tenner in public transport £60 or £70 a day minus a £10 is still money
Winseer:
I thought cars under manufacturer’s warrentry didn’t need MOT’s. Since this period varies from producer to producer, I figured the time you don’t need an MOT on a new car would vary too?
No offence intended, but I’d expect a qualified vocational driver to be a bit more clued up than that on vehicle MOT’s.
mechanic77:
Its surprising how many cars come in for their first service [1 year old] with tyres worn to the limit on.
I would guess that some manufactures fit cheeper tyres on that dont last as long, also people wtih a new vehilce may get abit exited if its more powerful then ones they have had in the past, my grandad got a new BMW and wore the rears out in about 12,000 miles
mechanic77:
Its surprising how many cars come in for their first service [1 year old] with tyres worn to the limit on.
Doesn’t surprise me at all. We’ve got a litle Hyundai i10 and the front set wore out at 15K miles, which I’m told is about right for a small front wheel drive car. That’s not a huge mileage to put on in one year.
Can’t expect car drivers to check their tyres after all; by what I see every morning and evening a good 30% don’t bother to check their lights either.
manufacturers pay cost (or slightly less sometimes) for the tyres as a loss leader. The tyre co’s then nail the owner for the replacements and get it back that way.
Winseer:
I have no idea what else it might fail on apart from a dodgy handbreak travel.
Dodgy handbrake travel is 3 points on your licence if you get pulled ! they class it as defective brakes.
Tighten up the handbrake on a citroen or peugeot 4 notches or less, and you will find yourself locking up the back-end every pot hole and speed bump/traffic calmer.
And believe me , there`s a ■■■■ site load of potholes about
Many years ago I got a roadside check by the old bill ,my excessive travel didn’t quite hold the motor on a slope, got a £30 fine and 3 points for defective brakes,
Guess if your brake holds with excessive travel its not so bad .
as for the hand brake travel, as long as it has sufficent reseve travel, i.e. when you pull the hand brake on it doesn’t go to the end of it’s travel and hit it’s stop in the ratchet system.
as for tyre’s, most company’s put good quality tyre’s on the vehicles from new, i.e. michelin, bridgestone, goodyear, contnential etc. which are generally a soft compound tyre (grip well, but wear out quite quick), where as cheap tyre, like linglong chinese dykefinder’s, are generally quite a hard compound (not as good grip, but last for ages).
i’ve got a honda civic 1.6 auto (look’s like a rover 400), with 4 michelin energysavers tyre’s on it. put them on it about this time last year, when new they had 8mm of tread on them, 12month’s later with 15-16000 miles on them they have 4mm on them, so if i was going to be rinning them down to the legal limit, i’m looking at about 29-30000 miles on them on total by the time they reach the legal limit. which for a 60 odd quid tyre i’m quite chuffed with them, my mum had a 2.0 liter derv mondeo, and they eat tyre’s for fun, one set of front budget tyre’s maxxis 205/55/16 (80quid a corner tyre) lasted 10000 miles before they wore out. put a pair of pirelli p6000 on it next (90quid) and after 15000 miles they still had 3mm of tread on them
edit, @doyoumeanme, there are only 2 common mass prodused vehicle’s out there with the handbrake on the front wheel’s, the citroen c5 and the citroen xantia. also the citroen 2cv’s, saab 99’s. some old alfa’s, and some subaru’s had them as well.
most other vehilce’s have them operating on the rear wheel’s or in the case of land rover disco’s (spare wheel mounted on the boot) and defender’s have prop shaft mounted hand brake’s
. i can tell you all a couple of thing’s
