MOT Overlap HELP!!!

[Tiddles]

My MOT exspiers on the 30th December so I had the MOT dune today 1st December.

Well it faild and is going to cost twice as much as I budget for

The garage says I have to have the work and re-test dune by the 10th December or it will be ilegal to drive

But I asume the original MOT is valid and legal up to the 30th December.

HELP

[rospicer]

I thought so up till a while ago as well, once you've had a test even before the current one expires the you have the 10m days to get it re-tested. You should be ok but if vosa pulls you over in that time or a trafic officer does a vosa check it will show that you know it has failed MOT. Not good really..... I found that one out the hard way and lost 3 months on my MOT

Thats what a mate with a garage told me anyway

[robbie]

hi there
ckeck the failier sheet i am sure it is 10 working days and not 10 days

[jmc]

Mine had to have a new front wheel bearing and a bit of welding on a sill which I couldnt believe I missed when looking over it.I also put in a replacement headlamp as the old one was cracked and had a pond in the bottom of it with green things living in it There were some other bit so it all came to £280.Could have been worse I s'pose.
Thanks for the headsup about the mot as I thought you could run it until the end of the old one.Good luck with it.

[James Bass]

Damn glad I read this post. My MOT's due 11th January, and was gonna get it done after I get paid (on the 10th), but not sure if I should get it done now.

[Big Dav]

How would it be if you were to put the car to a non-mot testing garage for a "pre-mot" check - would that make a difference? I would imagine the system for giving limited repair time comes as a result of the cars chassis/reg number being fed into the mot computer system.
David.

[barryc28]

right , i work as an mot tester, and this is deffiently correct.

Your original mot is still valid until the date it expires......

however

by having a test done you have been notified that the vehicle does not meet the minimum requires to be used legally on a public highway and therefore your continued use of it meens that you are now driving a vehicle that has defects known to you, ie you no longer have the defence that you could not reasonably know about them, remeber the failure is logged on vosa database and the reasons for rejection , so basically you are now guilty of driving an unroadworthy vehicle and you know about it .......

you probably wont have a problem unless you were involved in an accident but if this unfortunatly happened and a defect that it had failed on was deemed to be a contributing factor you would be up s*!T creek without a paddle

[Road Hog]

If you are unfortunate & go past a patrol car equipped with ANPR it will show as failed MOT,also fairly sure that after the 10 day period your insurance will be invalidated

[fogman]

ive got to say this thread has been a bit of an eye opener

[barryc28]

anpr wont show a failure, it only shows current vehicle status and until the expiry date of the orignal mot the vehicle is still tested , the 10 working days thing is only regarding the time allowed for the vehicle to be retested on the defects found after this time it would have to have a full test

The "your insurance is void if you have no mot is an urban myth" I've confirmed this with VOSA , however back to what i said earlier about driving a vehicle with a "KNOWN" defect that has failed to meet the minimum requirements of section 74 of the road traffic act.

If you were have an accident and the defect was the cause your insurance could refuse to pay any sums due to you but not that of a third party claimant.

This is another reason that we now isssue advisory notices on mots to log faults on vehicle that the driver has been officially told about,

The driver is ultimatley responsible for the vehicles roadworthyness

[Big Dav]

With the foregoing info which has been a certain eye-opener, I take it that you would have to be extremely cautious if intending to purchase a motor that's in its last month of mot as an unscrupulous seller could keep quiet if they've been given such a notice. OK, any purchase should be cautious but a bit off if an apparent mot to see you through a month was in fact worthless. David.

[barryc28]

you can checkfull mot history of any vehicle at

www.motinfo.gov.uk

you just need reg and v5 doc number

will show any failures and details of what it failed on

and any advisories

[RatCav]

From the certificate:

On the front
"Warning: A test certificate is not evidence that the vehicle is in a roadworthy condition"

On the back
"An MOT test pass confirms that, when the vehicle was examined in accordance with Section 45 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, it met the requirement for those items prescribed under the Act. It does not meanthat the vehicle fully meets all legal requirements or that it will continue to be roadworthy for the next year. It is your responsibility to keep the vehicle maintained so that it would always meet MOT standards and be free from other defects"

In short, the current MOT certificate is only valid unless there is reason for it to be proved otherwise i.e. you have it tested again and the latest test results in a fail. As it has been proven your car is unroadworthy even the old certificate is now invalid.

If you got the necessary work done for the new test then the old certificate would become valid without having to take it for the retest, however your old cert will expire in the month you have left on it. The reason you have 10 days to get the work done is because that is the maximum time allowed for a retest to be done on the defective parts without having to do a full test.

Don't shoot me if i'm wrong, just going on what I have been told in the past

[jimmybhoy]

I normally go to my garage on month 10 & ask for a pre mot check. It costs the same, checks are the same but is not recorded with vosa. My garage tells me what needs to be done for the mot to pass & how much they will charge (a) to pass vehicle incl parts & labour (b) labour only price, if i source parts myself. This gives me 2 months to budget the cost & locate the difficult parts. Most importantly, come mot day, your not walking in to a boot in the nadgers

[barryc28]

like i said earlier the mot pass certificate is valid until the day it expires, its a legal document and thats its expiry date

so you cannot be prosecuted for driving without and mot as you still have one and it is valid until the expiry date


however


you could be prosectuted after it has failed a mot test even if you still have a valid old one for the offence of driving an unroadworthy vehicle and you would have no defence that you had no reasonable way of knowing it was unroadworthy as you have had a legal document (vt30 failure sheet) telling you that it has failed to meet the required standards

the law is an ass you can pass a vehilce that is unroadworthy, eg. propshaft hanging off is not part of the test so it will still pass, but if vosa or police stop you 1/2 mile down the road you can still be done for driving an unroadworthy vehicle. Now if the tester has put it on an advisory you knew about it!!!!!

the defect wouldnt be under section 45 road traffic act but under constuction and use so not part of the test

[Tiddles]

On the subject of advisory notes.

If for instance you are advised that the brakes are only just reaching the legal limit.
Then have an accident is there a legal or insurance issue because you are aware of a perpetual fault with the brakes.

Tiddles

[barryc28]

the legal limit for brake pads is 1.5mm any lower then they fail, an advisory would be worded "the brake pad linings are getting low" technically therefore if you let them get below 1.5 then the vehicle would no meet the minimum requirements of sect 45 rta , but it is unlikely that low pads would be percieved to be a direct contributing factor to an accident