New MOT before current one expirers?

jazzy

Is it possible to have your vehicle MOT tested before the current MOT expirers?
I have around 3 months MOT left on my car and I hope to sell the car with a new MOT, if possible.

Mark_d

Yes you can.

400ixl

Yes, as it will be more than 1 month before expiry it will be valid for 12 months from the date of issue.

Goudy

You can MOT a vehicle at anytime.

If it's less than a month before the expiry/due date, you will keep the same expiry/due date.
So in effect you can have up to 13 months on an MOT. (minus a day)

If it's more than a month before the due/expiry date, you will get 12 months from the date of that test.

Contrary to popular belief, if you take it in early at any time and it fails, any existing MOT it may have still had is no longer valid.  
It's not road worthy anymore and it will be logged on the system as such no matter how long you still had left on the original MOT.

CliveOfIndia

Yes, you can have an MOT done at any time.

In the normal course of things you'd want to do it no earlier than 1 month before the expiry of your existing one - that way you preserve the anniversary of the existing one (in effect the new MOT is kind of valid for 12-and-a-half or 13 months, if you see what I mean).

But there's nothing to stop you doing an MOT before that - it'll be valid for 12 months from the date of the test, so you'll "lose out" on a couple of months, as it were.  But really you're talking peanuts in the grand scheme of things - if you work it out over the year, it's 4 and a half quid a month (assuming they charge the full £54.85).

400ixl

Goudy said:

Contrary to popular belief, if you take it in early at any time and it fails, any existing MOT it may have still had is no longer valid.  
It's not road worthy anymore and it will be logged on the system as such no matter how long you still had left on the original MOT.

Not quite correct, your current MOT is still valid.

You can still drive it from the MOT station provided there were no dangerous faults. Once you have fixed the failure items you can still drive it under the original MOT. You just can't drive it until you get the failed items fixed.

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test#:~:text=Driving a vehicle that's failed&text=your current MOT is still valid

Mildly_Miffed

Goudy said:

Contrary to popular belief, if you take it in early at any time and it fails, any existing MOT it may have still had is no longer valid.  
It's not road worthy anymore and it will be logged on the system as such no matter how long you still had left on the original MOT.

What you say IS the "popular belief" - and is codswallop.

Your old MOT is valid until it expires.
If the car is unroadworthy, it's unroadworthy - whether you take it for a test or not.

You take it in early, it fails.
It's EVERY BIT as legal to drive home and the next day as it was to drive to the test and the previous day.
If you fix the fail, you do not need to re-test it. The old test is still valid.

CliveOfIndia

It's the old chestnut.  The MOT test just means the car was roadworthy at the exact time of the test.  Having a valid MOT and having a roadworthy vehicle are two entirely different things.

You could drive out of the test centre having passed the MOT, a stone hits your windscreen causing a large crack, suddenly your car is unroadworthy, even though the MOT was performed just minutes ago.

If you've got a valid MOT then you won't get pinged by an ANPR camera for having no MOT.  But if the car is unroadworthy for whatever reason (worn tyres or blown light bulbs being two common ones), if you get stopped by the police for any reason you could get fined or warned, depending on the severity of the defect.

Goudy

400ixl said:

Goudy said:

Contrary to popular belief, if you take it in early at any time and it fails, any existing MOT it may have still had is no longer valid.  
It's not road worthy anymore and it will be logged on the system as such no matter how long you still had left on the original MOT.

Not quite correct, your current MOT is still valid.

You can still drive it from the MOT station provided there were no dangerous faults. Once you have fixed the failure items you can still drive it under the original MOT. You just can't drive it until you get the failed items fixed.

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test#:~:text=Driving a vehicle that's failed&text=your current MOT is still valid

Ok, it's valid but pretty much useless until you have the faults fixed.
So in effect the new failed MOT overrides the old one until the faults are rectified.

What you can't do is take it in 3 months early and it fails, then carry on under the original MOT without repairing the faults.

It wouldn't have a "valid" MOT as fair the ANPR is concerned without being fixed and retested as a Pass.
It would come up on the database as failing the last test it had.
You would have to explain and more likely prove that you have fixed the failures and are still covered by the original MOT.

I can imagine problems with insurance as well.
If you make a claim they will certainly check the status of your vehicle and if the last test it had was a fail, even though you repaired it and were continuing to run it under the original, that could cause at least some valuation problems.
I would be amazed if they detected the fail and ignored it just because it was put in early, however valid the original was.

In the case of the OP's requirement, it wouldn't be a smart idea to MOT it 3 months, it then fail and then try selling it without retesting it so it has a Pass on the system. 

Nearly anyone thinking of buying it will almost certainly check it's MOT status and history and the last thing they want to see is "Failed" as it's last entry.

So to actually get some benefit from an early MOT, it really needs to pass or pass on a retest.
Otherwise that early MOT is worse than useless no matter how valid the original one still is.

Mildly_Miffed

Goudy said:

400ixl said:

Goudy said:

Contrary to popular belief, if you take it in early at any time and it fails, any existing MOT it may have still had is no longer valid.  
It's not road worthy anymore and it will be logged on the system as such no matter how long you still had left on the original MOT.

Not quite correct, your current MOT is still valid.

You can still drive it from the MOT station provided there were no dangerous faults. Once you have fixed the failure items you can still drive it under the original MOT. You just can't drive it until you get the failed items fixed.

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test#:~:text=Driving a vehicle that's failed&text=your current MOT is still valid

Ok, it's valid but pretty much useless until you have the faults fixed.
So in effect the new failed MOT overrides the old one until the faults are rectified.

What you can't do is take it in 3 months early and it fails, then carry on under the original MOT without repairing the faults.

It wouldn't have a "valid" MOT as fair the ANPR is concerned without being fixed and retested as a Pass.

It would have a valid MOT, and ANPR (and vehicleenquiry) would show that.

If the car is unroadworthy after the fail, then... it was unroadworthy before it, and would have been unroadworthy without that test.

The new MOT affects precisely zero.

The old test is still valid.
The car's roadworthiness is unchanged by it.
The only thing that's changed is that the owner is now aware of the car's unroadworthiness...

400ixl

It is essentially no different to taking it in for a service and finding out there is a fault which means it is not roadworthy. The MOT is still in place, but the vehicle should not be used on the road until the fault is fixed and it is roadworthy again.

There would be no issue with insurance either, unless it was driven in an unroadworthy state with the driver aware and it was that particular fault that resulted in an accident. There would be no issue with the MOT status of the car as it would still have a valid MOT if they checked that.

I'm sure the OP would be looking to sell it with a fully valid 12 month MOT, thats why they are getting it re-tested early.