Dealers offering 12 months MOT with car.

tommyt41

Hi there,

Been searching for a new car for a while and found one I particularly like. The Mot is running out shortly and the dealer are offering 12 months MOT with sale. However I'd prefer to see the MOT before purchasing the car, as depending on the advisories it might mean I don't want to buy it.

Any advice with this? Would a dealer offering this be liable to repair any advisories? Or could they merely ask the tester to turn a blind eye to some of the advisories if this was the case.

cheers

JJ_Egan

No advisory is not a liability , why would they ask a tester to commit fraud ??

Ask the dealer can you see the MOT before purchase .

But be aware a MOT is fact on xx date and advisory's are just what the tester sees .Its not a full scale inspection like AA/ RAC carry out .

tacpot12

The dealer is not liable to repair any advisories. They could ask the tester not to list advisories, and some corrupt testers will do so, but generally the dealer won't bother because the are not liable to fix them. Advisories are usually wear and tear items that would be expected to be found on some, if not most, cars of that age. 

Getting an 12 MOT should ensure that you find out what advisories there are and you can attend to them before the next MOT and before they become a reason for the car to be unsafe.  

Most dealers will not MOT a car until they have a buyer for it - they may never find a buyer and have to move it on through the trade. 

tommyt41

Yeah fair enough. Be nice to have an mot before hand as i say it could be the difference between buying it and not. 

AdrianC

...and what's the vendor's reply to "I'll have it, subject to the MOT going well."?

ontheroad1970

OP, you can always say that you'll purchase the car provided the car passes the MOT and that anything flagged as an advisory is dealt with at the seller's cost.  You basically put a condition on the contract verbally or in writing and that is binding. 

AdrianC

Depending on the age of the car, "anything flagged as an advisory" is just ridiculous. Even near-new stuff may well get advisories for undertrays preventing full viewing, etc. On something older, a bit of light corrosion is to be expected.

Even a fail isn't necessarily the end of the world. After all, most things can be very quickly and easily sorted.

[Deleted User]

All dealers have pals in the MOT trade and they usually get them to leave the advisories off the MOT sheet.

They will all make out that the MOT is totally true and legit because they don't do MOT's in-house but I don't buy that.

Sandtree

There is an obvious chicken and egg situation... dealer doesn't want to do the MOT now, you pull out of the deal and the car sit around either with the promise of another MOT to be done for the next interested buyer or a depreciating asset of a new MOT cert running down.

The first option is to make a conditional offer, personally would do it by email or such so there is a record of the conditionality but depends on how trusting you are.

Second option is to offer to pay for the MOT itself so there is no loss to the dealer if you walk away based on the outcome.

Ectophile

Just assume that the MOT will have no advisories, as LeeUK says.

The last car I bought had 4 worn tyres, one of which was a gnat's whisker from being illegally bald. The MOT had no advisories.

AdrianC

Ectophile said:

The last car I bought had 4 worn tyres, one of which was a gnat's whisker from being illegally bald.

Does nobody bother looking at cars before buying them?