Gawd help us, DVLA has got a new system!

bazster

So I gets one of my motorbicycles MOT'd by the ever-wonderful Big Dave at Moore's of Hemel Hempstead, and he gives me a nice printed piece of paper saying it passed, with lots of details on it like the test number and the VRN and the VIN, and his signature at the bottom.

Three weeks later, MOT status check on the DVLA website tells me that the test number doesn't exist and the most recent MOT for this vehicle has expired.

So I 'phones up DVLA yesterday where a nice but baffled Welsh lady also can't find the test number and blames it on their "new system". Eventually she puts me on hold for a couple of minutes and then comes back to say she's run a "vehicle check" (whatever that is) which does indeed show that the machine is MOT'd until July 2016.

But today the MOT status check still says the test number doesn't exist and the most recent MOT has expired.

So it seems to me that whether I am liable to be pulled over by The Plod for no MOT depends on whether they have access to the aforementioned "vehicle check", or whether they are looking at the same non-existent test details that the website can't find.

I also expect that, if I don't sort this out, I'm probably going to have a world of aggravation when I come to SORN the bike in the autumn and tax it again in the spring.

So now I'm going to have to write to the idiots complaining about this, which I expect will result in a series of fob-offs and and an increasingly stroppy me until they eventually admit there's a problem.

Exasperating! Grrrr!

facade

The whole MOT system is switching from a closed system (run by Siemens I believe) that worked, to a web based system, that doesn't.

AFAIK, the contract with Siemens runs out 31 Aug, so don't expect to get an MOT done in September. :D

bazster

I wonder if they are piloting the new system on bikes then, since there's a lot fewer of them than cars and it's a simpler test?

Double_V

facade wrote: »

The whole MOT system is switching from a closed system (run by Siemens I believe) that worked, to a web based system, that doesn't.

AFAIK, the contract with Siemens runs out 31 Aug, so don't expect to get an MOT done in September. :D

So they are going cloud based.

facade

No doubt it is "more in line with the changing needs of the 21st Century" (= cheaper), but will end up costing more to make it work as well as the old one.

AdrianC

I actually feel a bit sorry for DVLA sometimes. And this is one of those times. They're damned if they do, they're damned if they don't.

Remember how the current system "works". All MOT garages are supplied with a fully-maintained PC/printer etc by Siemens. It's old tech, and it's not going to be cheap for _anybody_.

The new system...? Garages supply their own IT - which they almost all have already - and just point it to a website.

What ISN'T easier and cheaper in that for EVERYBODY (except, maybe, Siemens)?

facade

AdrianC wrote: »

What ISN'T easier and cheaper in that for EVERYBODY (except, maybe, Siemens)?

Like everything else corporate that moves from bespoke closed to cloud, there will be a few people who have to use a wheelbarrow to wheel the money that they make setting up & servicing the web portal up their tree lined private drives, and everybody else can't do their jobs because "the system is down/running slow".

AdrianC

I don't think it's a move from "bespoke closed" to cloud in the sense that moving from, say, local installs of Office to O360 or from a local Exchange server to GMail would be.

It's still a "bespoke closed" system, just with a web-based front end, rather than a locally installed client app. Woo. The biggest difference is that the gov't agency involved (it's actually DVSA, previously VOSA, rather than DVLA) aren't going to be providing MOT stations with hardware under a full maintenance contract.

bazster

AdrianC wrote: »

What ISN'T easier and cheaper in that for EVERYBODY (except, maybe, Siemens)?

It is not easier and cheaper for me 'cos it doesn't bloody work, and whatever savings they think they are making are going to be eaten into by the cost of dealing with my complaint (and a lot of others too I shouldn't wonder) and fixing the problem(s).