4 years before first MOT. Good/Bad idea?

Orionaut

Orionaut

Orionaut

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What say you?

My Gut says "Bad" Some drivers could put 100,000 miles on a car by 4 years. A lot can go wrong in that time. The idea that they might do so without any testing requirement seems a bit worrying.

(Perhaps it should be 4 years or 40,000 miles, whichever comes first say)

After all, in the 70's most cars would have been in the scrap yard by the time they had hit 100,000 miles.

OTOH, perhaps modern cars really are so much better engineered that the concerns of 40 years ago really no longer apply and a change in the rules really is justified.

But I would have thought a major part of whether this is a good or bad idea could be ascertained from analysis of MOT fails on 3 and 4 year old cars.

VOSA has this data.

If it really is the case that only a very small number of 3 year old cars fail their first MOT on serious issues (IE Not no windscreen wash fluid or a torn wiper/blown bulb etc), then maybe it is actually a reasonable idea.

On the other hand, if there are a significant number of vehicles failing at first MOT at 3 years on serious issues (EG Knackered brakes etc). Then perhaps it is not.

I would be interested to know what the actual data says.
 
The fact it still is 3 years tells us its probably not an issue.

If you think about it, the only vehicles that realistically will be doing that kind of milage will be fleet vehicles, taxis, police cars etc, all of which tend to have their own service schedules/different testing requirements.

I'd imagine the cases of cars doing that kind of milage in personal usage aren't common.
 
I'm sure i've seen some sort of statistics saying a fairly high percentage of 3 year old cars fail their first MOT, usually on stuff like tyres and wipers though. But even so if someone doesn't check their tyres for 3 years straight it'll be no different in the 4th so i'd rather keep it as it is.
 
It's 4 years here in NI and while I've never seen any statistics to say it's a bad thing, I've never heard any complaints as to why it should be any less. Seems to work fine.
 
It should always be a year between MOTs, given that there are people who can't do simple things like monitor oil, tyre tread or brake pads.

I mean it's hardly like a test is hundreds of pounds?
 
This came up a few years ago and a local garage I know was on the news. I cannot remember the % figure, but the number of cars that failed the 3 year MOT was a lot higher than expected. Considering that some people do not do any form of maintenance from one service/MOT to the next, it could mean the cars that fail the 3 year MOT would be on the road for another 12 months unrectified, so for that reason I think it's a bad idea

FluffySheep

:edit

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...car-fail-MOT-The-common-reasons-revealed.html

This says the figure is about 20% fail, with some models more like 25%. OK, many will be due to a simple blown bulb, but with 17% of the failures due to 'tyres' I'm worried
 
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I honestly can't see the point. It's not as if the 30 quid an MOT costs is a major ask for somebody with a 3 year old car is it?

I wonder if it will reply to cars registered after 2018 or cars which have a first MOT after 2018, as my first MOT is due then. Interesting.
 
I think it's a great idea, means I won't have to buy new tyres for an extra year. /s


You know it's a stupid idea when you hear people (usually women) at work who don't believe cars require any type of maintenance until an MOT
 
Skillmister said:
I think it's a great idea, means I won't have to buy new tyres for an extra year. /s


You know it's a stupid idea when you hear people (usually women) at work who don't believe cars require any type of maintenance until an MOT
Click to expand...

I can't believe when I go to get a pair of CS5s put on mine at over £200 for them, and there's some woman in there whinging because her part worns are £25 each.

Makes me wonder why I bother when people like that are just going to slam into the back of me anyway.
 
Bad idea IMO. Plenty of people still use an MOT as an indication of when to get their tyres/brakes/light bulbs sorted, rather than giving the car a brief once over once a month.
 
Funny topic really as it reminded me of a colleague who was shocked to get a £550 bill for his car after a recent MOT (It's VW Polo) which needed new tyres, brakes and something else I forgot about.

You'd think people would put safety first and check these things from time to time.
 
Most manufacturers have online/computerised service database, so I reckon if the car is shown as having a service (based on the service schedule of the vehicle) then MOT can be 4 years, if not then 3.
 
There no MOT done at all on cars over here and there never has been..
I have always thought this is very wrong as thousands of owners over here take there cars away on holidays and the condition of some the older cars can be scary

Do motorbikes also have to past an MOT in England ?
 
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Not a chance I'm for this

Having seen the state of some cars at 2/3 year old I'd be all for annual MOTs from 2yr old instead of 3yrs. People as a whole are terrible at looking after cars

Then again I also would be happy to see our taxi tests go from 6 months to 13 weekly plenty of death trap taxis kicking about here in Glasgow and that's with 6 monthly inspections, in a similar vein their trying to change that to 12 monthly, basically means I could cover 100k between inspections. I like my daily checks but I'm a minority some people can't/won't even top their washers up between mots
 
It's a tricky one, you already get people who just don't care about their cars or not realise what you need to do is maintain it. I once had someone at work fill up their oil with screenwash (purely from not knowing anything about it).

If they put this in, you'll get a lot more "My garage says I need to get new tyres/brakes even though they've got plenty of life left", with the garage knowing if they don't bring it to peoples attention, they'll never get it sorted until it's bordering on lethal.
 
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