Help with car decision

palasmy

Folks, just did the MOT and the car failed - would require ~£320 to pass, little confused now. MOT expires end of this month, Taxed until March and insured until end of April.

Posted the details on gumtree few days back and have had no response so far, planning to try it on both ebay and fridayads. Have another 10 days to make up my mind for a MOT retest carried out with no additional fees.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Thanks
J

facade

Save some money and pay the £320 for another years motoring, you will lose lots more than that if you buy a new car.

palasmy

Facade, agree but the expense doesn't stop there as I will have to again come up with another few hundreds in two months time for tax and insurance.

Since I plan to change car anyways, thinking to save this money for that rather than spending on this car. Question is really whether or not the MOT is going to make any difference in the selling process, of course appreciate that it is difficult to predict what will happen but if I end up selling it for spares and repairs then the MOT will be a total waste.

Any more thoughts / suggestions will be helpful..

facade

As you are definitely going to get a new car, just scrap it when the MOT runs out if it hasn't gone via gumtree. (EBay is an expensive way to sell a cheap car)
An MOT likely won't add £320 to what you get for it and you have all the hassle of selling. Just cut your losses

londonTiger

lesalanos wrote: »

It wont cost hundreds to send it for an MOT. It will cost about £30.

Worth sending it in early Jan to see what needs doing to get it to pass its test. Then you can decide

£30 is typically for a chain MOT who will be incentivised to find faults to fail on and charge for the repair at the same time.

With OPs situation it's almost like throwing £30 down the toilet because you can almost guess what they're going to say.

For a £30 MOT at a place that rhymes with swick mitt a car with rearender damage will almost come out with several major fails and been deemed unsafe on the road (whether they are valid or not).

A full price MOT at £40-50 at council mot is more likely to give you a fair opinion. The whole reason why councils offer MOT is because they want to avoid being fleeced by private MOT stations who in the past would just point out pointless and invalid faults and the council staff would just agree to all repairs because it's not their money. To be a registered test station council need to provide MOT to the public too. Many councils will offer MOT at huge discounts - the mot center in East ham charges £40 and has free coffee, orange juice and other refreshments too.

lesalanos

londonTiger wrote: »

£30 is typically for a chain MOT who will be incentivised to find faults to fail on and charge for the repair at the same time.

With OPs situation it's almost like throwing £30 down the toilet because you can almost guess what they're going to say.

For a £30 MOT at a place that rhymes with swick mitt a car with rearender damage will almost come out with several major fails and been deemed unsafe on the road (whether they are valid or not).

A full price MOT at £40-50 at council mot is more likely to give you a fair opinion. The whole reason why councils offer MOT is because they want to avoid being fleeced by private MOT stations who in the past would just point out pointless and invalid faults and the council staff would just agree to all repairs because it's not their money. To be a registered test station council need to provide MOT to the public too. Many councils will offer MOT at huge discounts - the mot center in East ham charges £40 and has free coffee, orange juice and other refreshments too.

No it won't. My local garage charges £30, I have been using them for a number of years and haven't had any fails yet.

BeenThroughItAll

Most of my trusted local garages do MOTs from £30-£40. They have to in order to compete with KF and the like.

londonTiger

What how are they staying afloat at £30 per test? £30 would just about cover the wages for the mot tester, does not take into consideration overheads like insurance, opportunity cost of using ramp for more lucrative jobs etc. Rent, rates etc.

In fact £30 mots will be operating at a loss.

Are they even charging vat or is it a cash in hand gig?

Horizon81

londonTiger wrote: »

A full price MOT at £40-50 at council mot is more likely to give you a fair opinion. The whole reason why councils offer MOT is because they want to avoid being fleeced by private MOT stations who in the past would just point out pointless and invalid faults and the council staff would just agree to all repairs because it's not their money. To be a registered test station council need to provide MOT to the public too.

Maybe this was true one day but have you watched the news in the past few years? Local councils are on the bones of their proverbials with budget cuts across all services. I can't see how they're any more impartial than any other garage now. If they think they can sell you it to make money, then they will. Their own fleet may well fly through MOTs, but that's not to say Joe Public's will. The ones my way offer garage services as well as MOTs so it's an easy source of income.

londonTiger

Horizon81 wrote: »

Maybe this was true one day but have you watched the news in the past few years? Local councils are on the bones of their proverbials with budget cuts across all services. I can't see how they're any more impartial than any other garage now. If they think they can sell you it to make money, then they will. Their own fleet may well fly through MOTs, but that's not to say Joe Public's will. The ones my way offer garage services as well as MOTs so it's an easy source of income.

The council doesn't carry out any repairs, so they are more likely to give a balance view rather than a regular garage who has an interest in doing repair/service work.

The whole reason why council provide MOT services to the public is because of a rule that all MOT centres must be open to the public. Otherwise they are primarily created to certtify their fleet vehicles.