Scrap MOT tests?

[colnerov]

Fixed that for you

We do need saving from ourselves. I was parked outside the chippy filling my face a while back watching a taxi ( private hire) do a uturn, he got halfway across the road when his front wheel complete with strut parted company with the car. You get plenty of warning with suspension parts clattering about before incidents like this occur but people still leave things until the test is due before they will repair anything. To abolish or extend this interval would be a disaster.

Bob

Hi, Your taxi friend there would (or should) be on 6 monthly MOTs.

Colin

 

[julianf]

The 40 year exemption has happened.

If your car is 40 years old and not substantially changed within the last 30 years (I think that is the term but not sure) you can claim exemption.


If the rule makers are silly enough to introduce 40 year exemption who knows what other nuttiness could happen.

My 101 has just gone tax / mot exempt (after sending off various documents to the DVLA)

The mot exemption thing is just to simplify the test - nothing more. It becomes hard to write a test to cover all the different builds through the ages.
How do i feel about my truck being mot exempt? Well, i did a sorrowful 20 miles between tests last year, so, yeah, it will save me that £50 test fee, but, if i was going to do some work with it (ie a proper trip) then i would have no issue taking it for a test, and paying someone with a better eye than me to check it over.

 

[130]

2 year MOTs would lead to bigger bills rather than 2 manageable bills for some. This could lead to good cars being scrapped for a big bill rather than an easier to swallow yearly bill.

Basically bad for people and bad for the environment. Most Carbon ever consumed by the average car is in its production

 

[steveo3002]

shouldnt really be having massive bills if the car was half road worthy in the first place

hear it all the time im never buying another xxxx brand , cost me £800 for mot , then it turns out they was running their kids around on 4 bald tyres and faulty brakes

need more education that certain things need checking and repairing year round , not save all the faults and assume the mot is some kind of thorough refurbishment and a full engine service ...omg the oil light is on again i only had a mot 9 months ago!!

 

[130]

That's not a realistic view
Someone with a sub £1000 car that checks their tyres, fluids and lights could easily get a tolerable bill of say £300ish for a couple of struts plus fitting before any bolts shear and eat time

Leave it 2 years and they pick up that bill plus the same at the other end and a couple of ball joints in expensive arms and the it's potentially not worth a fix

"......well it's An old car and something else may go..."

All things you couldn't necessarily expect an average motorist to know about.

There's no point paying a garage to do a yearly inspection of your car when you can get one wrapped up in the MOT for a tidy price

 

[RonA]

My cars never see the garage except for MOT and tyre fitting.

However, some of the "professional" paid for garage work that has happened before I bought them is shocking.

Ditto learnt to fix push bikes as a kid & moved onto cars at 14. Used the money I saved on each repair to buy professional tools for the next repair. “Professional” only means you get paid for your work it doesn’t always imply expertise. Tremendous satisfaction & confidence when you fix it yourself.
RonA

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

Well done tackle one offence by commiting another.

Not really.
As flashed headlights is to indicate I am here. Im just making sure they can see me.
They obviously struggle with vision as they have failed to notice a headlight out and driving with reduced visibility.
Thats my excuse and im sticking to it.

 

[Cobbler]

I don't drive much in the dark now, but I used to see the same cars every morning for weeks on end with both the side
light & headlight out on the drivers side. Easily mistaken for a motorcycle on some cars.

 

[Greeves246]

It was on Radio 4 news at 5pm. Predictably AA spokesman rubbished the idea, but there were compelling arguments about the effectiveness of testing. Germany, France and Italy have two year MOTs without a problem as well. Greeves246

 

[tlovatt]

Not helped by how difficult manufacturers make changing bulbs these days either.
Always make a point of giving guilty parties a good dose of main beam.

If I notice a light out on the way to work its replaced before thw drive home.

Wait until you get one of the modern cars and a LED system goes - some are over £1k for a new headlight and you can not replace a bulb, the units are fully integrated.

I try not to have the headlights on now as I do not want to wear them out!

 

[Kent]

Wait until you get one of the modern cars and a LED system goes - some are over £1k for a new headlight and you can not replace a bulb, the units are fully integrated.

I try not to have the headlights on now as I do not want to wear them out!

Best move is as I do ask before you purchase the vehicle, walk away if the bits are silly money to buy or install because that makes it a rubbish product to own

 

[the snooper]

I think majority of cars that fail do so on minor things which does show that people are taking care of their vehicles, obviously if vosa are thinking of doing this they will have taken into account the percentage of vehicles failing on dangerous items

 

[Gareth J]

A chap on the radio suggested that appropriate data says there is no notable differences between accident rates, road deaths or even accidents caused by mechanical failure in places with/without a test.

This was in the states and Europe. We can't look at UK data (except perhaps jersey which isn't really fair due to its tiny size and low average speed etc) because there isn't anywhere w/o a test to do comparisons with.

I've no reason to doubt the data so that suggests that the MOT - largely a minimum safety standard, probably does little for safety.

That said, I'm glad the MOT is there. For all of the reasons outlined above.

Perhaps, instead of scrapping it, they should consider implementing a system that might make a difference...

E.g. many HSE related things are policed by a system of random checks and thorough investigations post incident.

Maybe people would take greater care if they thought the mot man might pop round at any time than they do now, when they have a new mot and think "that's it, fine for another year..."

Maybe not. But if it's true that the current system does little or nothing to help, to keep doing it does seem a bit daft...

 

[Wightsparks]

As I am on the hunt for a new car in the 1-1.5K bracket (and don't really know what I want) I have spent a lot of time looking at the MOT reports - the number of fails on bald/lacerated tyres and worn out pads and discs must be several times that of suspension issues/rust/emissions.

EDIT - never mind my perception here are the numbers
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...itial-failures-by-defect-category.csv/preview

 

[angellonewolf]

im all up for the older cars not having to have the mot but as before said lots of people i know in passing only look at there cars when the mot comes up people drive round with a bearing squaling or bold tyres i spoken to mate as i was at hes front door waiting after knocking and was just staring around happen to look at his tyres they where on the line on all 3 lines over the tyre i said about it the reply was im getting my moneys worth out of them
i cant see the point lets say he drives for 3 months on duff tyres whats that realy going to equate to 2000 miles extra on 2 tyres. most tyres do 12000 miles that means that every 6 years he saves £80-100

for what at the worst the chance of having an accident kill someone and they rule if he had good tyres he could have stoped instead of running them over and gets 7 years in prison stupid

 

[the snooper]

im all up for the older cars not having to have the mot but as before said lots of people i know in passing only look at there cars when the mot comes up people drive round with a bearing squaling or bold tyres i spoken to mate as i was at hes front door waiting after knocking and was just staring around happen to look at his tyres they where on the line on all 3 lines over the tyre i said about it the reply was im getting my moneys worth out of them
i cant see the point lets say he drives for 3 months on duff tyres whats that realy going to equate to 2000 miles extra on 2 tyres. most tyres do 12000 miles that means that every 6 years he saves £80-100

for what at the worst the chance of having an accident kill someone and they rule if he had good tyres he could have stoped instead of running them over and gets 7 years in prison stupid

Problem is, your mate is just blatantly flouting the law because he is a miser and even with the mot system in place so there will always be those type of people regardless of system

 

[Cobbler]

Problem is, your mate is just blatantly flouting the law because he is a miser and even with the mot system in place so there will always be those type of people regardless of system

You've only got to look at the parked cars in the supermarket car parks & realise quite a percentage of people run on illegal tyres a lot of the time, edges worn right off due to underinflation or tracking. I reckon a lot of these only get the tyre pressures checked when it needs a service.

 

[Gareth J]

You've only got to look at the parked cars in the supermarket car parks & realise quite a percentage of people run on illegal tyres a lot of the time, edges worn right off due to underinflation or tracking. I reckon a lot of these only get the tyre pressures checked when it needs a service.

Precisely.

Which is probably why, NOT having an MOT test doesn't appear to make any difference to accident rates, even accident rates that are put down to vehicle defects.

If that's the case, something ought to be implemented that does work.

Something that encourages owners to keep on top of maintenance more often than once annually. Carrot or stick.

The MOT isnt better than nothing in many cases, it's worse than nothing as if people aren't able to rely on it, they'll have to up their game, even idiots know tyres don't last forever.

 

[owas]

On a car that wasnt old enough to have an MOT

 

[the snooper]

You've only got to look at the parked cars in the supermarket car parks & realise quite a percentage of people run on illegal tyres a lot of the time, edges worn right off due to underinflation or tracking. I reckon a lot of these only get the tyre pressures checked when it needs a service.

Yeah you do see edges worn but aslong as the central 3/4 of the tyre is ok it will pass mot