What to do if car fails mot and you are told it’s illegal to drive the car back?

sheramber

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test

Failing the MOT

Your vehicle will fail if the test result lists ‘dangerous’ or ‘major’ problems with your vehicle. You might not be allowed to drive until you fix the problems.

Driving a vehicle that’s failed

You can take your vehicle away if:

• your current MOT certificate is still valid
• no ‘dangerous’ problems were listed in the MOT

Otherwise, you’ll need to get it repaired before you can drive.

If you can take your vehicle away, it must still meet the minimum standards of roadworthiness at all times.

oldagetraveller1

P3 said:

If you have breakdown service, will they tow your car to the local garages with dangerous mot failure ????

Doubtful, the clue is in "breakdown". It has to depend on the dangerous fault.

I suppose a collapsed suspension, no brakes, a wheel fallen off etc. could be classed as a breakdown if it's not driveable?

The breakdown insurance Ts and Cs would have to be checked, and the circumstances relevant to the problem considered, before calling them.

TooManyPoints

But no difference in law. 

Not in the statute. However, if you defended a charge of driving a dangerously unroadworthy vehicle during a journey on the way to the garage, you could offer ignorance of the fault, if not as a defence, then as mitigation. If you did so on the return journey, having been warned of the defect, that would cut little ice.

And in any event, the garage's opinion about it might not be legally correct.

Indeed it might not. Then the driver would be not guilty, whether he was driving it to or from the garage.

Grey_Critic

You do not say what model car but the Ford Focus Power Steering Pipe had a habit of failing. Happened to me in Whitby - I drove it back to Huddersfield (steering was a little heavy) took it onto the garage and they fir a new pipe.

I would get a second opinion.

SteveJW

TooManyPoints said:

But no difference in law. 

Not in the statute. However, if you defended a charge of driving a dangerously unroadworthy vehicle during a journey on the way to the garage, you could offer ignorance of the fault, if not as a defence, then as mitigation. If you did so on the return journey, having been warned of the defect, that would cut little ice.

And in any event, the garage's opinion about it might not be legally correct.

Indeed it might not. Then the driver would be not guilty, whether he was driving it to or from the garage.

This is covered by latent and patent defects

Aretnap

sheramber said:

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test

Failing the MOT

Your vehicle will fail if the test result lists ‘dangerous’ or ‘major’ problems with your vehicle. You might not be allowed to drive until you fix the problems.

Driving a vehicle that’s failed

You can take your vehicle away if:

• your current MOT certificate is still valid
• no ‘dangerous’ problems were listed in the MOT

Otherwise, you’ll need to get it repaired before you can drive.

If you can take your vehicle away, it must still meet the minimum standards of roadworthiness at all times.

As ever the information on the gov.uk website is broadly correct, but not quite the whole truth.

(1) It veers randomly between talking about "driving" the car and "taking it away". You cannot drive a car legally if it has a dangerous fault but you can perfectly legally take it away (eg on a trailer) - the garage has no power to impound it

(2) It's the presence (or not) of dangerous fault which makes the car illegal to drive, not the fact that one has been listed on an MOT fail report. The tester cannot put a prohibition on your vehicle - he can only offer an opinion on whether it's safe to drive. MOT testers are not infallible (I've even heard that there are some dodgy ones who fail cars on dubious points to drum up business for their repair service). So if your tester fails the car and tells you that it has four bald tyres, a steering column which is about to snap and brake pads worn down to the rivets then if you think he's talking rubbish you can drive away perfectly legally. But only if you are right, of course.

TooManyPoints said:

But no difference in law. 

Not in the statute. However, if you defended a charge of driving a dangerously unroadworthy vehicle during a journey on the way to the garage, you could offer ignorance of the fault, if not as a defence, then as mitigation.

Indeed and the law actually makes this explicit

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/53/section/48

Where a person is convicted of an offence under section 40A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (using vehicle in dangerous condition etc) the court must not—
(a) order him to be disqualified, or
(b) order any particulars or penalty points to be endorsed on his driving record,
if he proves that he did not know, and had no reasonable cause to suspect, that the use of the vehicle involved a danger of injury to any person.

You would probably have difficulty arguing that you had no reasonable cause to suspect that your vehicle was dangerous if you'd just been told that it was by an MOT tester.

Bonniepurple

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Car_54 said:

LunaLater said:

What was leaking from your steering wheel? That’s quite worrying, there should be no liquid in it.

Mine has a coffee dispenser.

Is it a Suzuki Cappuccino by any chance 🤔

What a Latte fuss over it all 😂