MOT expired and I have a windscreen chip!

Aretnap

Also check whether your policy has an excess on glass claims. If it's a small chip which you can get fixed for a few tens of pounds there's little advantage to involving your insurers if you have a £50 excess on the claim.

Alter_ego

Not all windscreen chips will fail MOT

ericonabike

SpecialBoy, thank you for your pithy comment. Perhaps a little courtesy would have been preferred, but still...Along with many others, I suspect, I have long thought that having a current MOT was a prerequisite of car insurance. After being spurred to do some research, I'm satisfied I am wrong, and that insurers merely ask that the car be kept 'in a roadworthy condition'. I found the following explanation, which seems to sum up the position nicely.

"Few car insurance companies stipulate that a valid MOT certificate must be present in the event of a claim, else the insurance will be void. Generally, for minor claims, the insurance provider will not ask to see a valid MOT certificate. For large claims, where the vehicle might be a write-off, things may become more complicated if no valid MOT has been issued for the vehicle.

Certainly not having a valid MOT does give an insurance company grounds not to honour a claim. In many situations however, it could be argued, especially by a legal representative that by not having a valid MOT was irrelevant due to the nature of an accident and what caused it may have perhaps been driver error (as in most cases) and not vehicle failure.

Ultimately it would cost insurance companies far too much in lost cases by small claims courts if they were to challenge every case due to not having a valid MOT. This is why claims are assessed on an individual basis, partly among other things such as driver error, is if the vehicle was in a roadworthy condition and whether a particular defect caused the accident.

An MOT certificate whether present or not provides no proof of the vehicle being in roadworthy condition. Often however, the lack of a valid MOT certificate simply results in a reduction of the claim settlement, if anything at all."

roddydogs

is it bigger than a 5p piece within the swept area of the wipers.?

roonaldo

I had a chip repaired recently by some bloke in Tesco car park, they wont and dont need to know anything of the MOT.

Stoke

If I was you, check out the DIY kits on the Internet. The one my sister used on her old Pug was by a company called Summit and we were surprised by the results. A large crack became almost invisible. The chip where the stone had hit was still slightly visible because obviously AutoGlass use a UV Light to reduce that, however it was smooth to touch and passed an MOT no problem. The kit was about £15 and other than being a bit messy was great!

BeenThroughItAll

roonaldo wrote: »

I had a chip repaired recently by some bloke in Tesco car park, they wont and dont need to know anything of the MOT.

But to get the car to a Tesco car park, you need an MOT, unless you like to do your shopping with the car on a recovery truck.

mrmot

Having windscreen damage greater than the allowable limits, 10mm for zone A and 40mm for the remainder of the swept area is not necessarily a MOT fail. As well as meeting the size and location requirements to fail it also has to affect the drivers view of the road, so low down and high up damage should be a pass and advise.

Also the drivers view of the road should be assessed by sitting in the drivers seat and looking through the windscreen, not by standing outside and inspecting the windscreen.