Early pass/fail MOT question.

Jamesyboyjim · 14 Mar 2016 at 13:27

Hi all, my MOT is due the end of next month, the car needs a few non mot related issues doing, which will cost a few hundred. The thing is, I discovered this weekend gone, it has some corrosion underneath and I'm not sure how it'll affect the mot, or the cost to repair it. I've booked an earlier mot for the end of this week to see how it gets on as, if it fails miserably and the car has to go, I wont get the other stuff done obviously.

Now the thing is, I've discovered the mot certificate from last year will still be valid, (its on the .gov website) you can still drive the car assuming it isn't in a dangerous state that would get you fined if you were pulled.

Basically, if I then decided to trade the car in at a main dealership, would they see the vaild mot or the fail? Or both? I'm not sure if doing that is a minefield or technically perfectly acceptable.

Thinking about it, I should have just asked a garage to look at it to see what they thought. Damn.

Haggisman · 14 Mar 2016 at 21:12

Pretty sure both will show on the govt website

xs2man · 14 Mar 2016 at 22:04

Ask the garage to do a pre mot instead of a real one?

rodenal · 14 Mar 2016 at 22:09

Both would show, albeit it would have a theorerically valid ticket.

Snookums · 15 Mar 2016 at 01:15

you can even check yourself online. It will show that your current passed not expires on xx day and it failed it's renew on xx day. Your old mot will still be valid though till its expiry date comes.

Heisenberg · 15 Mar 2016 at 02:29

Snookums said:
you can even check yourself online. It will show that your current passed not expires on xx day and it failed it's renew on xx day. Your old mot will still be valid though till its expiry date comes.

That's wrong. It has recently changed so that as soon as your car fails an MOT it is now no longer MOT'd even if the previous ones expiry date is in the future.

Phantom Shadow · 15 Mar 2016 at 03:19

Heisenberg said:
That's wrong. It has recently changed so that as soon as your car fails an MOT it is now no longer MOT'd even if the previous ones expiry date is in the future.

Have you got a source for that? The gov.uk website itself still says if your car fails you can still drive it if the previous MOT certificate is still valid - as well as saying that if the old certificate has expired then only to drive to repairs/pre-arranged MOT.

If they're mentioning differences between a still valid/expired certificate after a failed test that would suggest that nothing has changed, and your car failing an MOT does not invalidate the existing certificate. Though obviously if the car failed because it is unroadworthy then you can't drive it.

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test

edit: found a news article referring to the page above. Apparently they changed the advice to say you can't drive away after failing, and then changed it back pretty quickly to the existing advice.

Heisenberg · 15 Mar 2016 at 06:04

Phantom Shadow said:
Have you got a source for that? The gov.uk website itself still says if your car fails you can still drive it if the previous MOT certificate is still valid - as well as saying that if the old certificate has expired then only to drive to repairs/pre-arranged MOT.

If they're mentioning differences between a still valid/expired certificate after a failed test that would suggest that nothing has changed, and your car failing an MOT does not invalidate the existing certificate. Though obviously if the car failed because it is unroadworthy then you can't drive it.

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test

edit: found a news article referring to the page above. Apparently they changed the advice to say you can't drive away after failing, and then changed it back pretty quickly to the existing advice.

It was part of a memo sent in work. I'll try find it today. It may have been based on hearsay in the business though. In any case, it's risky business driving a car that's failed an MOT as irrespective of MOT status, driving a vehicle that is in an unroadworthy condition is a fine and possible penalty points. Obviously a failed MOT is proof that you're vehicle is unroadworthy so I wouldn't recommend it.

thecremeegg · 15 Mar 2016 at 08:08

Heisenberg said:
It was part of a memo sent in work. I'll try find it today. It may have been based on hearsay in the business though. In any case, it's risky business driving a car that's failed an MOT as irrespective of MOT status, driving a vehicle that is in an unroadworthy condition is a fine and possible penalty points. Obviously a failed MOT is proof that you're vehicle is unroadworthy so I wouldn't recommend it.

Hardly...you can fail for any number of things that aren't going to cause your vehicle to be unsafe.

tom_e · 15 Mar 2016 at 08:25

Heisenberg said:
It was part of a memo sent in work. I'll try find it today. It may have been based on hearsay in the business though. In any case, it's risky business driving a car that's failed an MOT as irrespective of MOT status, driving a vehicle that is in an unroadworthy condition is a fine and possible penalty points. Obviously a failed MOT is proof that you're vehicle is unroadworthy so I wouldn't recommend it.

You'd fail for having an indicator out, that's not unroadworthy.

Jamesyboyjim · 15 Mar 2016 at 12:44

Thanks guys, I'm hoping the corrosion isn't going to be an issue as I'd imagine it comes over time and wasn't even an advisory last year. Anything else the car may fail on will be a surprise.

Upon checking, the car does however need a tyre so I'll have to sort that before the test. There goes not spending money until after the MOT. :mad:

Dogbreath · 15 Mar 2016 at 13:14

Heisenberg said:
That's wrong. It has recently changed so that as soon as your car fails an MOT it is now no longer MOT'd even if the previous ones expiry date is in the future.

Nothing has changed. There was a DVSA memo that sort of implied this, but really it was just reinforcing the fact that you can not drive an unroadworthy car on the road. Any remaining MOT still remains valid after a failure.

Jamesyboyjim · 21 Mar 2016 at 09:51

Well, the car passed with a few advisories, not sure how drastic they are, what does ocuk think?:

Advisory notice item(s):

nearside rear Anti-roll bar linkage has slight play in a ball joint (2.4.G.2)

offside rear Anti-roll bar linkage has slight play in a ball joint (2.4.G.2)

nearside front Suspension arm rubber bush deteriorated but not resulting in excessive movement (2.4.G.2)

offside front Suspension arm rubber bush deteriorated but not resulting in excessive movement (2.4.G.2)

Power steering component(s) has slight seepage from a seal (2.3.3b)

offside rear Tyre worn close to the legal limit (4.1.E.1) (now sorted)

Oil leak (I'm told this is referring to the seal above)

Rear coil springs corroded

Underside of vehicle corroded

MooMoo444 · 21 Mar 2016 at 11:20

I wouldn't have thought they are anything to worry about otherwise the car would have failed the test, but I'd get the leak fixed, wouldn't want your power steering to fail on the go.

Jamesyboyjim · 21 Mar 2016 at 11:22

MooMoo444 said:
I wouldn't have thought they are anything to worry about otherwise the car would have failed the test, but I'd get the leak fixed, wouldn't want your power steering to fail on the go.

Thanks for the assurance!

Annoyingly I have only recently had the power steering pipes replaced as they were leaking so I was quite surprised by that one.

MORE SPEED · 21 Mar 2016 at 11:42

Anti roll bar links are usually pretty cheap to replace if you wanted peace of mind.

Fuzz · 21 Mar 2016 at 19:24

If you are trading it in for a new car, what the hell are you doing fixing advisories!!!
Just part ex the thing, they wont knock you on the price for MOT advisories. You'll be lucky they even look at the car at all.

Jamesyboyjim · 22 Mar 2016 at 09:13

Fuzz said:
If you are trading it in for a new car, what the hell are you doing fixing advisories!!!
Just part ex the thing, they wont knock you on the price for MOT advisories. You'll be lucky they even look at the car at all.

You make a valid point, I'm not sure what to do at the moment though, ideally, keeping it is the best thing and cheapest but while its worth roughly 1100 quid or so as a trade in, should I get rid.

I'd like to keep it to save money but the advisories do concern me. Last thing I want is for it to be worthless in a year and me needing a new car anyway.

bJN · 22 Mar 2016 at 11:27

Look at it another way then - do you want to trade it in for a new(er) car, or stick with it? It won't cost £1100 to sort out all those points highlighted above. So trade it in without fixing them and get something else, costing you £xxxx and resulting in you having a car that may have its' own issues, or spend £xxx resolving the issues with your current car and continue with happy motoring!

BlastRadius · 22 Mar 2016 at 14:50

If you do decide to keep it, I recommend Waxoyl as a rust treatment for the underside of your car. Sprayed mine last October and it has coated it ever since.