MOT to become two-yearly

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JohnD
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MOT to become two-yearly

Post by JohnD »

In an IAM magazine earlier in the year I read the following article:

A government review of ways to cut costs by reducing red tape has suggested replacing the annual MOT test with one every two years. The move would bring the UK into line with other EU countries which require cars to be tested at four years and every two years from then on. Reducing the frequency of MOT tests could save motorists £465 million a year as well as cutting down on paperwork, said the report.

As a DIY mechanic responsible for the maintenance and MOT preparation of four family cars, this article grabbed my attention. Recently I’ve wondered what, if any was the outcome of the consultation. I turned to Google and eventually looked at the MOT testers website where members have been invited to sign a Downing Street petition calling for the proposals to be rejected. The wording of the petition reads……” In light of recent investigation, in the region of 150 people are guaranteed to be killed on U.K roads, if this change is implemented. Car Insurance will increase, as cars are no longer safer on the roads. The loss to the economy will run into hundreds of millions of pounds. 38% of MOT Stations, Motor Factors will go into recievership. Reducing the periodicity of the UK MOT to comply with the minimum EC requirement will allow millions of reckless car users to save money by skipping vital servicing of safety and emissions systems, making the roads less safe for all road users, costing them more money in insurance and increasing emissions generally."
In my opinion some of the reasons for rejecting the proposal are wildly inaccurate. For instance I found in a transport report the following: “In Great Britain, data collected6 about road traffic accidents in 1999 to 2002 examined the factors involved in each accident. Excessive speed was the most common contributory factor in fatal accidents, playing a part in 28% of all fatal accidents examined in the trial. Careless, thoughtless or reckless behaviour was next, being a contributory factor in 21% of all fatal accidents examined. In accidents resulting in any severity of casualty, inattention was the most common contributory factor, found in 25% of all accidents examined in the trial. Failing to judge another person's path or speed was the next most common contributory factor, playing a part in 23% of all accidents examined.” There is no mention in this report of accidents being caused by “millions of reckless car users saving money by skipping vital servicing.”
Fearing that this petition calling for the proposal to be scrapped may have more influence than it should, I wonder if a petition in support of the proposal should be opened. What does anyone think?
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Post by LeeDJC »

I was thinking the same thing as I was reading your post. A petition in support would be much more supported than one against!
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Post by alan s »

Over here we have a crazy set up with 3 tiers of Government, so you can use your imagination at the variety of legislation. Added to this, we have duplication of departments with a bunch of "silver tails" all devising ways to build empires within these departments.
Departments to be involved with vehicles range from "Transport" "Main Roads" "Machinery" "Police" and that's just at a State Level in my State, and each run their own agenda in each State and Territory. :roll:
A few years back, they went on one of these "Vehicle Roadworthy" campaigns. Now where I am, you don't have to get a vehicle inspected until you want to sell it, but you can be stopped by eithe a copper, a Transport Department officer or a machinery examiner, your car tested and if found faulty either put off thet road or fined. At the time, the usual "spin" (propaganda) was being pushed via TV and media in general so whenever there was an accident, we had some poker faced copper standing there like the villiage idiot on TV pointing to a spot of rust in a mudguard and blaming that for the deaths of 5 people in a car that had just run under a train or something equally as stupid.
This campaign always seemed to coincide with the drop in car sales or closure of a car related plant somewhere.
Eventually, we got hold of statistics that showed that whilst 28% of all cars involved in accidents had defects, only 2.6% of these cars had accidents because of these defects. In other words, few if any cars would have avoided accidents if the defects didn't exist (approx 3 in every 100) and of the ones that had the defects, it was found that the defects were more of a contributing factor than the actual major cause, so these MOTs are more for window dressing for Politicians and an indirect way to support the motor industry than an actual genuine attempt to reduce road carnage.
From what I've read over the years, the repairers have made a real welter out of these so-called safety tests, so it's natural they'll want to protect that golden goose but the only way to counter this would be to find that statistic as they are obviously pulling stats out of their heads for a fear campaign.
With elections looming over there, I'd suggest you point the "fear campaign" at the Politicians (fear of losing their big paying cushy jobs) by firstly countering the false info being peddled and via the petition quoting genuine figures, because you can bet the motor industry will throw a lot of money at its campaign to keep it going, however, a Government in electoral trouble will be looking for the "popularist" vote and this could help give them a few.


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Post by CitroJim »

John, like you I look after the family fleet but in my case it is 6 of them :lol: and having just had Dads done and the GTi looming I'm a little ambivalent on the subject.

One side of me thinks the annual MOT is a farce and the other side of me thinks a yearly inspection is not a bad thing at all. I'll try to explain my thinking:

First, why I think it is a farce:

I see some shocking old (and not so old) heaps regularly running around and frankly wonder how on earth they can possibly posess a valid MOT but they wear current Tax Discs so they must have.

Every car I have bought over the last few years has had a current MOT certificate and in EVERY case if I were the MOT tester I would have failed it. My Activa, when I first picked it up, had 11 months MOT and in my opinion it was dangerous, having shocking brakes and a duff hydractive electrovalve at the front. Dads 205 had 12 months MOT when he bought it and the brakes on that were lethel. The handbrake was non-existent.

I have taken cars for an MOT that in my opinion should not have passed. Back in the day, I used to submit a car for a test early, on spec as it were, with absolutely no preparation and take advantage of the free retest to make good any fails. In almost evey case they either passed or failed on something really silly :shock:

Why I think a yearly test is a good thing:

A lot can happen to a car in a year and the owner/driver can fail to notice it. I recently serviced a car for a friend and she was shocked when I pointed out she had two bald front tyres. She would, in all probability have run them on until they punctured. Brakes deteriorate slowly and unnoticed. This is all very much safety related. Things like this are not going to get spotted quickly enough at service time because the intervals are now so long.

Even for us who really care, it makes us give our cars a damm good check-over at least yearly to ensure a pass.

The system does need an overhaul though. I believe every car should be subject to a yearly safety test. Furthermore, this test should be carried out by an agency with no financial interest in the result bar the stipulated fee. By this I mean that the test should not be carried out by a garage who carries out repairs and can therefore make money from a failure. I make a point always of taking my vehicles to a place who do nothing but MOT tests. In the two countries I've had the pleasure to reside in overseas, the local equivilent of the MOT was carried out by the government ministry responsible for transport and was very fair and unbiassed. Is this still the case in Australia Alan?

Another overhal that is needed is to relax a lot of paramaters now tested and to drop a few. Does the emission test really need to be so harsh to the extent that I have to have a "Running" and "MOT" AFM for the 205GTi to ensure it passes on CO and my son a CAT he keeps just for the MOT? I know we're not alone in doing this.

A duff bulb should never be a fail, just an advisory. I could go on but I think you get the gist.

MOTs for classic cars and bona fide enthusiasts could even be carried out by the owners themselves under club auspices. We're all capable of it on here and I know myself that I'm generally more critical than the MOT man.

In conclusion, let us retain a very simple and straightforward yearly safety test conducted by a government agency.
Jim

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Post by jeremy »

I entirely agree Alan - one of the problems with the annual test is that the test is the only maintenance or even inspection that the car gets.
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Post by alan s »

The system out here is now run by private individuals, hence the problems.
When I take a car in for (what we now call a "safety certificate) a RWC, I usually ask if they'll do it and tell them that they don't have to get excited about it as they won't be getting any work out of it, so they know where they're going before they start.
If they start the song and dance act about having to be done by "qualified" people, that usually ends up with a burst of laughter and me walking out the door.
New South Wales used to be all done by Government departments and that got bogged down in bullshit due again to people with egos larger than abilities pulling all kinds of lunatic stunts, including one I once heard of who knocked back a D special because it didn't have the engine number stamped on the block (always on a metal plate attached to the engine on Ds) the handbrake didn't work on the rear wheels and the headlights needed aligning (swivelling headlights he wanted to declare as faulty because the lenses moved.) but overall, they were strict to the point of ridiculous; I've seen cars knocked back for what was basically surface rust on panels. As soon as the private guys got their hands on it, I bought a car in Sydney and had one of the boys collect it and needed a "pink slip" or whatever they call it and then got a real taste of what a bunch of opportunists we had doing the work when one of them without seeing the car told him he'd need to leave it there for a fortnight so he could "go through it" as (without inspecting it) he knew it would need thousands spending on it (a CX we'd just paid $800 for that had been passed a few months earlier and already had over $5500 spent on it).
He then went to another who picked flat rear spheres which we knew it had, but then wanted $90 each to regas all 7 of them. (This one I rang and told him to get wotnotted) I had the local Cit club regas the 2 rear one to get it mobile and we borrowed a set of dealers trade plates off a guy he'd met at a race meet and drove the car home, 1300 klms, without problems; that just about said it all.
I think if Service stations were mandated or if they took the initiative of employing just one person to fill the car with petrol, check tyres and oil, clean the windscreen etc just like they used to years ago and even if they charged a small fee for this service (say A$5.00 a car) there would be a lot of people particularly the elderly and some women who would take advantage of this just to feel a bit of security in what they were driving. The one doing the checks would naturally point out things like tyres wearing unevenly, low oil levels, leaks and anything noticed during the checks and from the garage/service stations aspect, a lot of business would come to them without going the hard sell.
It seems these days, lazy operators and dodgy repairers need Government legislation to help them exist because they aren't capable of holding custom based on the standard of their work or their own initiatives.


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Post by Ross_K »

citrojim wrote:Furthermore, this test should be carried out by an agency with no financial interest in the result bar the stipulated fee. By this I mean that the test should not be carried out by a garage who carries out repairs and can therefore make money from a failure.
That's the way it works here in Ireland - the testing is tendered out to a private company with a performance review after 'x' number of years.

And we've got plenty of death-traps and rustbuckets on the roads here too :lol: :lol:

At the end of the day the only thing an MOT cert is good for is helping you buy that tax disc. I wouldn't rely on it as any kind of proof of roadworthiness. Dodgy MOTs aren't hard to find, even in this age of computerised testing. :(
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Post by den169 »

I doubt this bunch of idiots in government will do anything that saves the motorist money,The motorist is stopping the country from going down that pan.They may make it every two years but gauranteed they'll double the price hence making them more money for less work.
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Post by bxbodger »

The system out here is now run by private individuals, hence the problems.
In the UK we currently have a mix of private and public:the testing regime is overseen by VOSA, a government agency, but the actual testing is mainly done by privately run garages.
We can, however, also get a test done by our local council: they test their own vehicles and because of this they have a vehicle testing station: most local authorities open these to the public so they can make a bit of money from the testing fees: they tend to give a fair test because that's all they do: testing, they aren't looking for repair work so have no interest in finding imaginary faults.
My cars are tested by a Fiat garage, mainly because it's down the road from the office, plus he certainly is NOT interested in looking for work on a Citroen........!
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Post by Xaccers »

Thinking about it, with new cars not needing testing for 4 years, that gives them an extra years worth of old cars being removed from the system.
They recently computerised MoT records didn't they with major problems.
With a test every other year, they're reducing the load on that system.
Say 1000 cars are made a year, under the current system, when those cars are 3 years old, the MoT system has to handle 1000 new cars, and the same again the next year etc.
So when the first 1000 cars are 4 years old, that's 2000 MoT's to be done, 3000 the next year etc.
So by the 6th year of this, they're handling 6000 MoT's.
With the new system, when the first 1000 hit 4 years old, they're MoT'd, the next year another load of cars is made, but the first load are skipped, so again only 1000 to handle, next two years it's 2000 each year, next two years it's 3000, so in the 6th year of this (equivalent of 7th year on the old system), they're only handling 3000 MoTs.

Having the resources to handle 6000 compared with 3000 would cost a fair bit more.

They're claiming it will save motorists approx £25 a year, but they don't mention that insurance premiums will go up due to the increased numbers of unroadworthly cars driving around causing accidents, and of course the tax burden of having to deal with some of those accidents.
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Post by AndersDK »

2 year MOT periods have not been an issue here in DK since the system was launched.
Cars over here are in general very much more roadworthy these days - compared to the time we only had the ownership change MOT.
Incidents caused by maintenance gross failure or neglects are no longer present in the statistics.
Cars found at the roadside always seem to suffer from engine problems (cambelts :? ).

Cant see what you'll loose going from 1 to 2 year MOT periods - other than halving turnovers for the garages :twisted:
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Post by admiral51 »

if it does go to a 2 year test would it mean that for one complete year at start up of this then only a maximum of 50% of vehicles on uk roads would be tested assuming everything with expiry date upto 30/06/?? gets tested that year and everything from 01/07/?? gets tested on expiry +1yr

assuming there are approx 20million vehicles on uk roads @£40 per mot then they lose £400 million per year
vat @17.5% on that i think is about £70 million to the exchequor where are they going to replace that from?
apart from new registrations one year lots of mot jan-jun very few july-dec and the reverse the following year
and if new vehicles have first one after 4yrs there is going to be a lot of idle mot stations
i could be totally wrong but you know what our governments are like
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Post by ACTIVE8 »

The police now use cameras (cash cows) to attend to speeders, and don't patrol like they used to, as obviously if someone had a tug for speeding, or a light out then they (the police) would check for other faults, that would, and did then keep drivers on the lookout for keeping their car in order.

So, if the cars are checked every two years, and as I mentioned above roadside stops/checks etc are rare, then it will mean there might be more cars out there driven around in a dangerous condition !

Our roads becoming more unsafe, great that's all we need, they are bad enough as it is at the moment !
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Post by TehAgent »

Personally i can see that its all just a sham, even at the test station it clearly states,

"It does not mean that the vehicle is roadworthy for the life of the certificate and is not a substitute for regular maintenance" and also

"A test certificate relates only to the condition of testable items at the time of the test and should not be regarded as:

*evidence of their condition at any other time
*evidence of the general mechanical condition of the vehicle
*evidence that the vehicle fully complies with all aspects of the law on vehicle construction and use"

IE: you can pass the MOT on the Monday, yet on the Tuesday when that important part has just fallen off you car it will fail IF you took it back the next day.

So weather its a year test or a two year test, doesn't matter much, the test is only really valid for that one day anyway.

But i do agree with
"They may make it every two years but gauranteed they'll double the price hence making them more money for less work
that den169 stated.
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Post by admiral51 »

i agree wholeheartedly with TehAgent and den169 all it will mean is less well maintained vehicles and more money for us motorists
another case of smoke and mirrors
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