Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerard C
Mike, if I were you I wouldn't bet on that because its already the case at least if you own an actual german car. They are "able" to make a self diagnostic and call a dealer or the rescue the satellite device helping to locate.
The 4 years then 2 years thing viva refers to is what we have here for private cars. Next target the motorcycles.
May be then electric bicycles…  |
I suspect that the figures available from the testing regimes will be showing that 4 years for the first test and 2 years between them are quite reasonable for modern cars.
Scrapping tests for much older cars was one of the few nanny State initiatives in decent decades that suggested they trust people to look after their own interests in life.
With most of the high mileage stuff being business vehicles presumably purchased on a full service lease plan I doubt lack of service bookings ought to be a problem, though my experience of the services delivered for company cars under old arrangements (not fully covered lease plans) suggested that the service delivered might not be up to much anyway.
Private finance tends to have a relatively low threshold for mileage before expensive payments kick in - say 10k pa. So 4 years around 40k and many cars are only just onto their second service by then according to their built in monitoring systems.
Potholes notwithstanding, I doubt the results of extended testing periods will have any real effect compared with the current regime. After all, whether one has it tested or not one is still ultimately responsible for the safety aspects of the vehicle at any age. So presumably they have found a new an more effective potential revenue stream at least as far as Government coffers are concerned. Probably the one about not being able to pass on Road Tax to a new owner for example.
By the time all of this rolls into place extensively new vehicles are likely to be fully tracked. The only issue is whether that is done by using rather expensive camera and sensor based monitoring networks, extending what is possible now via ANPR, or by the manufacturer's built in systems.
For pure road usage income generation the latter would likely work well enough, especially if the car could be disabled if it had not payment account/registered owner/had been reported stolen/etc. It would also be cheaper for government.
To accelerate the "uptake" all they have to do is introduce legislation that, in effect, result in older vehicles becoming unusable in terms of cost effectiveness within, say, 10 years. Or less. So quite similar to what Paris is doing at the moment and London has in place for many diesels.
Thus many cars will not get close to 100k miles in their working lives despite being designed and constructed, in recent times, for 2 or 3 times that use as a minimum.
Will be then the the manufacturers changing the quality standards on the basis that they are monitoring service and only need to make a car viable for 100k miles?
Or will this become a moot point as people abandon private ownership after being forced to take a hit on their city-living diesels and move to electric cars provided on a hire-as-you-need-it basis from hire pools?
At which point the MOT test suddenly becomes rather obsolete.