New MOT rules! Great for classics owners!

Malt_Vinegar

Malt_Vinegar

Malt_Vinegar

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As of today my MGB GT no longer had to have an MOT :)

The new rules mean that cars over 40 years are now able to registered as MOT exempt. Slightly annoyed that it requires me to visit a post office to do so, and then presumably I will have to wait till it gets to the system to allow me to "Tax" it for free as I usually do?

I drive the car less than a few hundred miles a year and do all my own maintence so think that for classics owners its a great step. As paying for an MOT that says the same thing each year is slightly annoying :D

I think the rules on pass levels look a little bit more complex to work out and not being able to drive a car after the checks if it faisl is going to limit repair options for home mechanics.

How long till garages offer "Pre MOT tests" to allow cars to be checked unofficially to allow people to fix their own cars again?

Diesel cars are getting a harder time with DPFs being a named item and any smog at all is a fail.

Overall, the changes look interesting in some cases but perhaps not thought out well in others.

What say you motors?
 

Hades

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There is a sting in the tail though. If I understand correctly, if you get an MOT early and it fails, your previous MOT can be deemed terminated early. Previously people would get the car tested up to a month early and if it failed they kept driving until it was fixed and tested again. Now I think it has changed so that the old MOT ends at that point.
 

Hotwired

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Mkay, so still legally required to have a safe and road worthy vehicle but no requirement to have a garage check it anymore.

Slightly reduced expenses for keeping an old car making it slightly more appealing.
 

Nasher

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They made the rules stupidly complicated, so there is going to be a lot of mistakes being made. Whoever made this stuff up needs to have a word with themselves :p

All they really needed to do was the updated emissions checks for diesels to spot DPF removals. But they just went nuts and changed things which didn't need to be.
 
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Jez

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Isnt this a lot of fuss about nothing?

The classifications already existed, MOT garages were already able to classify faults as dangerous and deem the car unroadworthy, yet this seems to be getting more attention because they have split it out on the new template.

Dangerous, Major and Minor are just the same as before.

New diesel tests are good too.
 

JRS

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re: the 40 year exemption.

I get the hand-wringing over it. I really do. But the MOT as it was did not cater to these older cars at all. Pa's IIa Landy that's outside as I type this is a prime example - never going to get close to emissions standards from the 1980s let alone current ones, steering that could charitably be called 'vague', brakes that actually work quite well but no garage locally knows how to deal with them, and a parking brake that acts on the driveline not the rear wheels so they're afraid of breaking it when they test it. Yet it's impeccably maintained, more so than 9/10ths of the more modern stuff around here. And almost certainly will still be going when my modern daily has been turned into a cube!
 

vanpeebles

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I agree JRS. That is the main trouble, the people don’t exist now in mot garages, who know what old vehicles should be like.

On side note, the emissions on my MGB would have passed later fuel injection limits easily, the MOT guy at the time was mega impressed.
 

mushtafa

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As a tester, I think it's a bad idea.

We see lots of old vehicles that look nice and shiny on top, but get underneath and they are either bodged/rebuilt wrongly, or just completely rotten.
 

JRS

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mushtafa said:
As a tester, I think it's a bad idea.

We see lots of old vehicles that look nice and shiny on top, but get underneath and they are either bodged/rebuilt wrongly, or just completely rotten.
Click to expand...

Okay. And how many 'moderns' do you see with tyre fails, brake fails, light fails, DPF delete fails, crappy remap fails and so on with all those folk that use the MOT as their annual service? 'cause believe me, I can *walk* from my home to my parents home and point out a number of cars that shouldn't ought to be on the road...and none of them are older than 10 years.

And hell, even stupid stuff trips up the odd semi-modern car. My old Seicento had an advisory every year like clockwork for a bad front anti-roll bar bush. Which I guess would have been fair enough, if it actually had a front anti-roll bar. Since it didn't, one has to wonder what it was that these MOT testers were looking at...I never did find out in the 12 years that I ran that dear old thing.
 

Hotwired

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That's not that convincing an argument.

No tests is obviously not as good as yearly tests even if there are rare situations where mistakes are made. A trade-off is being made here.
 

Malt_Vinegar

Malt_Vinegar

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Well, turns out I don't need to visit the post office! I just taxed my expired MOT/SORN MG online without an issue. I had let it lapse as the MOT expired just before the change and didnt fancy wasting the £40 when it was just going to be sat in the garage :)
 

Nasher

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ShiWarrior said:
no seatbelt ? surely thats a fail ?
Click to expand...

Not if it's older than the regulation requiring one.

No crumple zones, metal bumpers and probably steel panels far superior to most modern stuff. I bet it would flatten a modern car in a collision :p
 
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