Quick but dumb question re: tax discs

Adnams Drinker · 4 Jan 2008 at 21:08

Just been nosing around the DVLA site to try and find an answer to what seem to be a couple of simple questions but to no avail.

My car is going in for its MOT tomorrow morning, having been registered SORN for a few weeks since the tax and previous MOT ran out in late November. Assuming it passes, can I then tax it on the DVLA website later tomorrow - does the MOT status need time to update with the DVLA's records?

Once I have taxed it online, would I then legally be able to drive it on the road straight away or would I have to wait for the tax disc to arrive via the post? I'll happily keep my insurance details and the new MOT certificate in the glovebox if needs be, but what is the legal position regards displaying a tax disc?

If I was stopped by the police, they have the means to check the tax/MOT/insurance status of the car with the DVLA there and then, don't they?

Adnams Drinker · 4 Jan 2008 at 21:40

wolseley said:
As NeilMick has said, it is an offence not to display a tax disc.

If you already have the Insurance docs and V5, then the easiest thing to do would be to pop into a post office and get one there and then once you have the MoT certificate.

Ho-hum, can't say the displaying a tax disc thing is that much of a surprise really - I just wondered, now that a vehicle can be taxed online, if there was any kind of period of grace whilst awaiting the arrival of the disc in the post.

The old-fashioned post office method was always the second option I had in mind after the on-line option. Guess I was just trying to avoid traipsing down the village in the peeing rain/wind if at all possible!

Thanks for the replies gents

Adnams Drinker · 5 Jan 2008 at 14:57

Car passed MOT this morning no probs, so taxed it the old-fashioned way at the Post Office. This new-fangled interweb technology ... overrated I reckon

Adnams Drinker · 6 Jan 2008 at 08:54

Dogbreath said:
You don't need tax to drive to a pre-booked MOT. It would be impossible to get it if the cars wasn't already MOT'd.

Must admit I had been told that this was the case, but in my ignorance didn't know whether to believe it or not. Makes perfect sense logically, but that doesn't always count for much with our esteemed lawmakers ...

Either way, taxing at the Post Office made far more sense in this case, as I'll explain: the test centre was two streets away from where I live, so I took the car down there 8.30 yesterday morning. Got a call at 11.00 to say it had passed, so walked down and paid and then walked the 200 yards from the test centre to the Post Office, taxed it, back to the centre and a shiny, new tax disc on my windscreen - bish, bosh, job done. Can be dead handy living in a small village sometimes

...

A mate who's a mechanic is coming round tomorrow to change the plugs, change the oil and replace the air & oil filters, so at the moment all's well.

Just as well actually - my car had been SORN'd since the end of November and the engine management system in my wife's Tigra went kaput on Xmas Eve, leaving us stuck at home Xmas Day and Boxing Day. Family were all coming to ours on those days, so it was more of a massive embuggerance than a disaster, but we had to arrange a hire car so we could still go away on the mini-break we'd pre-booked for the New Year's Eve/New Year's Day period.