If I take a car for an early MOT, and it fails, is my old MOT invalid?

AtomicBanana

AtomicBanana

AtomicBanana

Associate
Joined
28 Sep 2003
Posts
1,724
Location
Leamington Spa
As title. I've got no 'dangerous' faults on the MOT, am I not allowed to drive it?

(Before anyone starts, no I'm not driving it anyway, I've borrowed another one in the mean time)
 
I've had a car fail on tires before and the garage told me it was ok to drive it to a tyre place for new ones so I'm guessing you'll be ok. That may not be the case now though, see what others say too!
 
You can drive it until the old MOT expires as long as there's nothing on the car that is illegal i.e. tyre treads or dodgy brakes or something :p
 
I thought that the fact it failed meant it had no MOT, but you are allowed to drive to a location that can rectify the problems and then drive it back to the test centre.
 
It does have a tire that needs changing, which I knew about. The problem is I only have time to MOT it again at the weekend, even though I could pop on a new tire and let the other stuff lie till the weekend. Seems I can't do that so I've had to sort out another car.

My dad was convinced that as long as it had nothing marked as dangerous your old MOT was valid. Almost everyone I have asked has given a different answer though =/

So for now it just sits on the drive . . . pita =/
 
Howard said:
You can drive it until the old MOT expires as long as there's nothing on the car that is illegal i.e. tyre treads or dodgy brakes or something :p
Click to expand...

I think that's wrong
if it dont pass that's it you have no MOT , it will go on the computer as a fail
then same rule's apply as no MOT ie you can drive to and from MOT centre
 
Before the computerised tests it was easy as you could drive until the old MOT expired simply because there was no evidence of the failed test having happened. Since the computerised test has come in this has become something of a grey area and I've never seen a definitive answer.

Best advice I've seen so far seems to be that unless the tester tells you the car is unsafe to drive then you still have a valid MOT and can drive it however you can still be prosecuted for driving an unroadworthy vehicle if the police pull you over and find something they don't like such as a bald tyre.
 
This is what I thought. I know about the tire, and that'll be done straight away.

Not wanting to mess around, I asked the MOT tester directly if I could drive it. He said that, no, I couldn't, I could only make the normal 'no MOT' trips from home - test center etc.

If the police look it up, will it show as having no MOT? This is largely academic now as I got insured on my mums car for the week (15 quid) while I sort it out.

If this is the case, what the hell is the point in MOT'ing a car early?
 
I am interested in the answer to this as I often take my car in for an early MOT in case something needs fixing and I thought that, as long as it was minor issues for the fail (i.e. not an illegal tyre for example) one could still drive until the previous year's certificate expired.
 
If it fails a new early MOT that is irrelevant - it still has an MOT until that expires and is still legal.

If it's a dodgy tyre or something then the previous MOT still remains valid but you could get caught for driving a car that is not safe etc... or something like that.
 
mjt said:
you tell me :p
Click to expand...

Well, in the past my dad has always done it with his cars, and had no problem. The theory is you get some time to sort out some problems while still being able to drive around. I take your point though

richolmes72 said:
If it fails a new early MOT that is irrelevant - it still has an MOT until that expires and is still legal.

If it's a dodgy tyre or something then the previous MOT still remains valid but you could get caught for driving a car that is not safe etc... or something like that.
Click to expand...

This is what I think, but when I'm driving 100 miles a day I can't take the chance. If I could see this written somewhere in black and white I'd do it . . .

EDIT:

Even this is conclusive:

http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/

If I put in reg + v5:

Date of test: 19/07/2008
Expiry date: 25/07/2009

But then:

'There are later tests for this vehicle that are either test failures or abandoned tests.
Further details are available via the History Check. '

So? Which one are the police etc going to use? >_<
 
Last edited:
richolmes72 said:
If it fails a new early MOT that is irrelevant - it still has an MOT until that expires and is still legal.

If it's a dodgy tyre or something then the previous MOT still remains valid but you could get caught for driving a car that is not safe etc... or something like that.
Click to expand...

just went and had a look around and it seems i was wrong :p
what richolmes72 says here seems to be the correct ans :)
learn something new each day ;)
just one of the sites that say the same thing :cool:

http://www.mottest.net/mot/mot-failure-question/
 
There is a sentence that sums this up perfectly, quoted direct from VOSA:-

An MOT certificate is valid until its expiry date. However if your vehicle fails a test before this date and you do not rectify the defects then you are driving an unroadworthy vehicle which is an offence.
Click to expand...

Backed up by the following sentence:

A valid MOT certificate does not guarantee a car is fit for the road. It simply means it was fit for the road at the time the test was conducted.
Click to expand...

So to put this into context if your car fails the MOT due to illegal tyres then you are driving an unroadworthy vehicle, you were driving an unroadworthy vehicle before the MOT, and you will be driving an unroadworthy vehicle until you get a new tyre. Therefore at anytime if caught you would be subject to a £2500 fine and 3 points per illegal tyre.

However once you get a new tyre your car is roadworthy and the old MOT is still valid until its expiry date, thus you can then drive your car again and get it retested to your timescale, with out worrying about driving without an MOT.
 
An MOT is guaranteed for 12 months. If you have another one done, say after 11 months, and fail, your old one will still be valid for a month.

However, you car must still be in a roadworthy condition with brakes, tyres etc all within the legal limit.
 
See thats the thing, as long as you fixed any obvious problems that the police could spot at the road side, you'd be fine. They won't see on their PNC that your car just failed for a handbrake cable clip. Tbh, I don't even think it would show that you'd been for another MOT. Only a VOSA roadside check would catch you out tbh, and I think you'd have to be really unlucky to come across one of those before your retest. It'll be one of those laws that isn't really enforced, but is there for things like dangerous faults. When you enter the MOT Fail details into the computer you can mark whether the defect makes the car unroad worthy, so i'd assume only that would stop you driving it before the retest.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom