MOT-type checks outside of an MOT

andy29_2

Hi, there are a few bits on my old car that are going to depend on the opinion of the MOT tester whether it'll get through with some work needing to be done, or lots of work. It's not in a great state but I've been told that it will depend on who looks at it.

Is it possible to take it to the same garage that I would get to do its MOT, and get them to look at the bits with a tester's eye - basically do the checks they'd do on those specific parts but not as an official test? It's rust in certain areas, slight play in joints, and the emissions. Or would that end up costing many times what the proper test would?

I know it wouldn't be any guarantee for the real test. But as far as I know I can't just get an MOT done early because if it fails with major faults and I don't get it fixed there, I'm stuck without even being able to legally drive it home and decide what to do.

fremen

you can ask for and pay for a pre mot inspection ,i have done this before when buying second hand cars that have had five or six months mot left that way i could sort anything out before its offical mot

angrycrow

Any decent garage should be capable of undertaking a pre mot inspection which is what you are after. Expect the labour bill to be slightly higher than the mot cost.

Alternatively have a look at the testers manual, link below and look over the car yourself. The only thing you can't assess yourself is the effectiveness of the brakes and the emissions. 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mot-inspection-manual-for-private-passenger-and-light-commercial-vehicles

Flight3287462

Personally I would just stick it through an MOT.

Seriously though OP you need to think long and hard about how you approach this, from what you say you are hoping for a miracle, should that really be the way of thinking about it, surely you want as safe a car as possible?

fred246

When I was at Uni I took my car for an MOT at a local place. Failed on brakes. How to much to fix? We don't know till we fix it. Could be any amount. OK I will fix it and bring it back. Then they got stroppy. If it's not fixed properly we'll charge a full MOT fee. So I took it home and fixed the brakes. Before I took it back for the retest I just wanted to check the brakes would pass an MOT so I phoned local garages.
"Do you do MOTs?"
"Yes"
"Can you see if my brakes would pass an MOT?"
 "No"
I almost went through the yellow pages and nobody would do it. And then one garage "Yes no problem £3"
And that one helpful garage is the only one who have ever MOTed my car since that day 32 years ago.
Problem is that they are now getting too popular due to their google five star reviews.

AdrianC

andy29_2 said:

But as far as I know I can't just get an MOT done early because if it fails with major faults and I don't get it fixed there, I'm stuck without even being able to legally drive it home and decide what to do.

Nope, your old MOT is valid until the expiry date. You can continue to drive legally until that expiry date, even after a fail.

BUT... if the fail is because the car is unroadworthy, then it's illegal to drive even before taking it in for the test.

The one exception to that is if you're on the 6mo covid extension to your old MOT - a fail will cancel that immediately. But it's still legal to drive home from a failed MOT.

Any garage will have a look and give you their opinion as to the likelihood of something passing the MOT, and a rough repair cost (which the MOT doesn't give). They will, of course, charge you labour. The MOT is fixed at £55, zero VAT, and takes about 45min. That works out to around £60/hr + vat. And, of course, the MOT goes through the entire checklist. If you asked them to check the things you thought were an issue, they gave you an acceptable quote, then you found something else awry on the actual test - because they hadn't looked at that - would you be hacked off? Yes, I suspect you would.

What is it that you're concerned about?

AdrianC

fred246 said:

...So I took it home and fixed the brakes. Before I took it back for the retest I just wanted to check the brakes would pass an MOT so I phoned local garages.
"Do you do MOTs?"
"Yes"
"Can you see if my brakes would pass an MOT?"
 "No"

Didn't you trust your own ability to work on the brakes...? The MOT standard is a very, VERY low bar, absolute bare minimum.

And you expected them to have the MOT lane empty for sufficient time to get your car up on the ramp, go through the brake part of the checks, then onto the rollers... Say 15min, all in. And charge you sufficiently little that it wouldn't be easier and cheaper just to put it in for the test.

Lomast

32 years ago they probably were not using rollers for brake testing 

AdrianC

Lomast said:

32 years ago they probably were not using rollers for brake testing 

32 years ago was only 1988. They were.

Tapley-type decelerometers are still used for stuff that can't be roller tested, but rollers have been in use for donkey's. Even so, checking the brakes without rollers would probably take longer - they'd still need to get the car up in the air to check the brake pipework and mechanicals, then test-drive it for the decelerometer.

I'm least surprised by the detail that Fred's life is so narrow that he's never lived anywhere else in the time since he was a student.
I'm most surprised by the fact that he was, apparently, at uni in the late 80s, so is only in his early 50s now. I had him pegged for several decades older than that.

facade

Lomast said:

32 years ago they probably were not using rollers for brake testing 

They were definitely in use in 1979, because I worked that Summer at a bomb-site car sales, and we had a transit with a bent frame. On a road test with a tapley meter it turned round in the road under braking, and I had to drive it to an MOT station a few miles away with a roller tester to get it passed.

Happy days, we really did put axle oil in austin 2200s to quieten them down to sell them

Sandtree

AdrianC said:

Lomast said:

32 years ago they probably were not using rollers for brake testing 

32 years ago was only 1988. 

This type of statement is getting increasingly depressing