We're selling my wife's car that has 3 months left on it's MOT. I'd like to get a new MOT for it to increase the value of the car.
If it should fail when presented for an MOT test, will that override the existing 3 months of the current MOT or will it still have 3 months left? I'm not expecting it to fail but just want to know what would happen if it did.
thanks.
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Forgive the complex and tedious answer, but, here goes;
First, nothing can cancel the validity of your previous certificate.
But, and it's a big BUT, once your car has failed it's MOT, not only does it have a fault which may make it illegal to use on the road, via the interconnected computers, the police will also know this.
There is no exemption for driving a faulty vehicle on the road - no MOT certificate can shield you from the need to keep the car in a road legal condition at all times.
You need to check how your insurer would respond to this - would your policy be invalid?
Phrased another way, when compared with the seriousness of being done for construction and use infringements and perhaps driving without insurance, the validity or not of the MOT certificate is very much the least of your worries.
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The value of the above response may be, and I believe is, immeasurable.
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The problem is if say you car is an MOT failure and you didn't know about the leaking brake pipe, you might be able to plead some ignorance and get a lighter penalty. If you had it MOT'ed and you know about it and carried on driving it they will through the book.
I did with this with one of my Fiestas, Ted was actually there at the MOT dock, bits of body work were falling off as the tester was prodding it, and the brake pipes were made of rust.
I didn't drive it again apart from back from the station.
Sold it as am MOT failure but with four months MOT remaining. The car was still MOT'ed but it wasn't legal to drive or road worthy.
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There are two types of failure.
a) The tester fails it, but it's not in their opinion dangerous - so you can drive it home and fix and retest.
b) It's lethal, and the tester issues a prohibition. Only way it leaves is on a trailer or truck.
Or it passes.
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>>There are two types of failure.
This was the case, but it is no longer true.
There is a recent case of a car failing on exhaust emissions, with remaining previous MOT certificate validity, and the car was stopped on the way home from the test only MOT station (i.e. no repair was possible on-site).
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>> There is a recent case of a car failing on exhaust emissions, with remaining previous
>> MOT certificate validity, and the car was stopped on the way home from the test
>> only MOT station (i.e. no repair was possible on-site).
I always though there was a certain amount of leeway for a 'failed' vehicle to be on the public highway if it was on a direct route to or from a pre-booked MOT test, as long as there were no dangerous faults present.
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DP - unfortunately, it's not clear cut;
From the direct.gov website
-------------------8<---------
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.
-------------------8<---------
It's open to some amount of interpretation. Until I heard of the case I mentioned, I would have considered an emissions failure to be extremely trivial and not really related to road safety - hower a jobsworth traffic plod took a different view.
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>> It's open to some amount of interpretation. Until I heard of the case I mentioned,
>> I would have considered an emissions failure to be extremely trivial and not really related
>> to road safety - hower a jobsworth traffic plod took a different view.
Sounds like someone failed the attitude test.
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I think you might be right Z.
However, as an MOT failure - even when another certificate remains valid - is flagged on ANPR, it makes driving home after a failure a lot more risky.
I would like to see the law clarified on this point - but would not like to be the defending party!! I have previously spent some time trawling through the Road Traffic Act, but, I can't see where this exact point is dealt with.
To add some more to sliding pillar's point, a police officer or a VOSA inspector can issue a prohibition notice - an MOT tester can't.
(That reminds me - sliding pillar - I need to ask you a question about the role of the rebound spring on the Morgan suspension - do performance users fit stiffer rebound springs?)
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You sure a car which has failed the MOT flags on the APNR? I thought it was only flagged the existing certificate had expired?
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I believe it does put a flag on ANPR.
However, I don't work with ANPR, so, I'm not 100% certain. I also don't know how often, or how quickly the records are updated.
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>>That reminds me - sliding pillar - I need to ask you a question about the role of the rebound spring on the Morgan suspension - do performance users fit stiffer rebound springs?)
Number Cruncher - no! In fact the rebound spring is sometimes omitted as it works against the rate of the main spring.
Back on topic and why I was corrected, I think the change to MOT failure dealing is a retrograde step. There are loads of things a car can fail on that have no bearing on the trip home, passenger seat belt instantly springs to mind.
For cars, I used the the local village MOT garage, quite literally the nearest garage of any kind, but the three wheeler has to be taken some distance as class 3 MOT garages are not that common, and I use the nearest vintage friendly one, so a bit further. Have driven it there but common sense now says I trail it there as the route definitely passes some fixed ANPR cameras.
Last edited by: Slidingpillar on Tue 28 Jun 11 at 13:27
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>> Number Cruncher - no! In fact the rebound spring is sometimes omitted as it works
>> against the rate of the main spring.
Thanks!
A little while ago, we held a extremely enjoyable trip to the factory in Malvern, and I found myself being the thorn in the tour guide's side as I wanted to dwell and properly understand what I was looking at.
I initially thought the same about the springs - but, after some more thought and a back of the envelope calculation, I found that I was wrong. Yes!, the springs do oppose each other in the direction of the force they apply to the axle, but, as the axle moves, one spring is compressed while the other extends - this means that the spring rates ADD, and so, taking out the rebound spring will actually make the suspension have a lower rate.
>> Back on topic and why I was corrected, I think the change to MOT failure
>> dealing is a retrograde step.
I tend to agree.
The case I had heard of is quite recent.
If the number of people getting caught increases, perhaps some clarification of the legal position would follow.
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In my case the Fiesta wasn't actually leaking fluid, so it wasn't flagged as dangerous but they were badly rusted and it wasn't road legal. The chassis had holes in it too.
So it wasn't dangerous, but if if left it would have become dangerous.
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>> So it wasn't dangerous, but if if left it would have become dangerous.
It's an absolute offence to drive an unroadworthy vehicle Rats. You'd just been told (by the MoT tester) that it was unroadworthy, therefore by driving it home you were committing an offence.
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But I am sure most of us here have driven cars we knew would fail the MOT, so surely that is offence too? All I did was drive it home half a mile after the test and never drove it again.
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Yes, most of us have done it, and in most cases we've got away with it. But, that doesn't make it OK, and it certainly is no defence.
Ignorance of the defect is also no defence.
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Whether you test or not depends to some extent on the car...condition and age.
There's a lot you can check in advance before you even book a test.
Check all the lights, wipers and washers, horn and hazards.
Look at the tyres, is the exhaust blowing ? Windscreen ?
Seat belts OK ? Age of car....rust or no rust ? Does it drive as you would expect and how did it perform at last years test. Were there any advisories then that might crop up as fails this year. It was only 9 months ago, don't forget. What milage has it done since then ?
Having checked all that and found all ok then I would have it tested if you feel that the increased value is more than any money you need to put into it ( incude test fee here ). Cars under 10 yrs old rarely fail now on anything serious like corrosion although a neighbour had the bushes go on the rear ' axle ' of her 52 Pug 306 estate causing the tyre to rub on the wheel arch. That would have gone for sgrap had she not a relative with a garage.
Having said all that, 3 months ticket should be enough to get the car off your hands...what about Rattle's dad ?
Ted
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The problem with corrosion though is it can spread very quickly especially if it has had bodged welding the year before.
My Fiesta had just just 800 miles since its last MOT, is one reason I bought it, yet 8 months later when I had it re-tested to see if the clutch was worth replacing it failed on nearly two pages!
Although the exhaust failed on the morning of the MOT!
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The MOT is, for all intents and purposes, only valid on the day it actually passes the test. After that you have to use common sense if weighing up a used car buy.
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Yep my Corsa had a fresh MOT by the previous seller, I had the car just two weeks and one of the rear springs had snapped. I suspect it would have been snapped at MOT time too, I just didn't check as I assumed the MOT had.
Another lesson learnt!
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Speaking as an infrequent buyer of old bangers, there are 3 stages of MOT-ness, in increasing order of confidence:
1) Short MOT. You really need to watch this one, anything might be about to go wrong.
2) New long MOT. Gives you time to get to know the car, do servicing, sort out any faults, without the pressure of MOT renewal looming.
3) Car will be sold with new 12 months MOT after inspection. This shows real confidence by the seller, and also confirmation that he will immediately put right anything that the MOT shows up.
This is the best of all options, but be wary if sold by a dealer. They may well have their own or a tame MOT tester on tap.
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Also 12 months MOT's can be used to hide other faults, like maybe an overheating engine, slipping clutch etc, although a test drive should show them.
We bought the Fiesta a week after it passed its MOT, it overheated the day after. I looked at one of the emissions reports it said something like "although engine ran very hot, we were able to complete the test".
It turned out just to be the thermostat so we were quite lucky.
I am also wary of buying a car with a lot of advisories, depending on what they are.
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but be wary if sold by a dealer.
>> They may well have their own or a tame MOT tester on tap.
>>
Yes, I've been caught that way, although it was relatively trivial. When I bought my pick-up, it only had an interior mirror. Given its age (1963) I thought no more of it but at the next MOT it failed as it's classed as a light commercial, obviously, and they DO need wing mirrors.
Luckily I'd got a set on its way from the States already, as it wasn't very easy to drive on Brritish roads being a left-hooker, so it was only stood for a couple of weeks.
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Explain the situation to the garage and ask them to give it a once over to see if it will pass. No record then and you can see if its worth getting a new ticket
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I'm sure this won't close the thread but I am the OP and I have sold the car with just the remaining 3 months tax.
I'm sure that there was nothing wrong wit the car but thought I could ask a higher price with a 12 month ticket. As it turns out, I got the price I was looking for with the current MOT.
Thanks all.
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MOT for a car that already has an MOT - Number_Cruncher
