MoT exeption for classics may be extended

[Colin McKay]

Not strictly a racing topic but will affect many of our cars (and transporters!) - DVSA are considering changing the current pre-1960 MOT exemption to a 30 years old exemption and are asking for comments here https://movingon.blog.gov.uk/do-you-...m-annual-test/

This morning, rather grumpily, I had to take my 62 Jag for test and, although it breezed through, would I have spent a day going over it without the threat of a test failure? Probably not given that it's only done 300 miles since the last one and I'm inherently lazy, would probably taken it down the pub for Sunday lunch instead. My village MOT garage does a brisk trade in tests on older cars, this would be another revenue loss for them and for around £50 where else would you get a thorough examination done? I never really understood the pre-60 exemption and am firmly in the No camp on this one (and the other yes/no nonsense currently 24/7 on the wireless)

[zefarelly]

£50 for a competent inspection is money well spent.

trouble is finding a competent inspector! most MOT garages are in business and use it to generate work, the younger guys don't know what they're looking at or how old stuff works, I always get comments on the Cortina and Lamnbretta MOT's its the way they were designed and built.

[Tim Falce]

I'm undecided at the moment having just bought a car that's a year older that myself although just for my own peace of mind I will MOT it.

Originally Posted by zefarelly

£50 for a competent inspection is money well spent.

trouble is finding a competent inspector! most MOT garages are in business and use it to generate work, the younger guys don't know what they're looking at or how old stuff works, I always get comments on the Cortina and Lamnbretta MOT's its the way they were designed and built.

You just need to know the right place to take them. I agree with your point on the younger people don't understand older vehicles, one of uncle Eric's lads would often phone me up asking how to do stuff on some older vehicles they had in. He had qualifications coming out of his ears and had done 4 years at college at Eric's expense but one day confronted with servicing an old car had no idea what a set of points or a condenser was.
This spills over into MOTing at some places especially when it comes down to play in wheel bearings etc. although most of us the test there are old gits and are more understanding................or blind.

[Colin McKay]

The guy who did the Mk2 this morning knew his stuff. I was sitting in the car doing the lights when he started thumping the boot lid hard. "Fixed the numberplate light for you...."

[zefarelly]

I get wheel bearing play as a comment on the Cortina. yes there is play, so they don't get red hot and burn out . . . but only just enough play. its like finding a good rolling road, most of them are just lap top mechanics.

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by Colin McKay

I was sitting in the car doing the lights when he started thumping the boot lid hard. "Fixed the numberplate light for you...."

Report him, thumping and tapping is no longer allowed.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Colin McKay

The guy who did the Mk2 this morning knew his stuff. I was sitting in the car doing the lights when he started thumping the boot lid hard. "Fixed the numberplate light for you...."

Reminds me of the old joke where a motorist is stopped by a policeman for in inoperative side-light which he 'fixes' in a similar manner.
"OK" says the policeman, "now bang your windscreen a few times and see if you can get your tax disc back in date!"

[John Turner]

I think all cars used on the road whatever age should be MOT'd. It will only take one irresponsible person to mow a bus queue down with an old classic who hasn't maintained its safety properly and the whole classic car movement gets castigated. It's road tax for the old cars that should be exempt on say a 25 or 30 years old rolling basis.

[DaveGT6]

I had the pleasure of putting my Westfield through MOT on Saturday at the village garage. It's a Ford X-Flow lump on twin Webers. The garage owner who was doing the test called his 2 apprentices over to show them what carburettors look like! He is definitely of the old school - when the indicators flashed once and stayed on he said - good enough (they work fine when the engine's running just not on battery only, the old plastic body problem) and a pass was duly issued. I had only done 50 miles since last test so I reckon I'm with the school of thought that says you should get tested as I really don't spend a lot of time checking the car over with such little use. Also it's good revenue for the village garage which probably needs all it can get to keep going and it would be a much poorer village without it (I think there's probably a thread about the village pub, post office, shop etc lurking here somewhere).

[MGDavid]

Nobody's yet mentioned the real likelihood that following MOT exemption will come strict limits on usage / annual mileage as already exists in part of the mainland EU, which will screw many of us in different ways. Vote early, vote often, vote No.

[PeterMorley]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

Nobody's yet mentioned the real likelihood that following MOT exemption will come strict limits on usage / annual mileage as already exists in part of the mainland EU, which will screw many of us in different ways. Vote early, vote often, vote No.

The Belgian system gives you two options.

Register the car as an Oldtimer and receive a number plate (you get a new plate each time you register a car) that starts with the letter O.
Then you just have it MOTed when you register it and never trouble them again (until it changes hands), the Oldtimer MOT is limited to just checking brakes, rot and other 'safety' items.
You then pay a nominal road tax (about 20 quid) and can have very cheap insurance.
But you are limited to driving within 30 kms of your home and only for personal use (e.g. not driving to work), unless you are testing for or participating in an old car event (which of course could be the case if you happen to stray too far from home).

Or you can register it normally, have a full MOT (including emissions tests etc), pay full road tax (which gets very high very quickly with engine size/power - a Rover V8 is over a grand a year in road tax) and normal insurance.

Given the speed most people here drive their old cars I don't see too much of a problem with the limited MOT!
There is a case for high performance cars being tested (in the opposite way to small low mileage cars only being tested every two years here), but you would hope that most owners would be bright enough to keep such cars well maintained (of course this is easier to do in countries that aren't filled with ambulance chasing 'lawyers'!).

Their limited numbers means that the mileage of Oldtimers is statistically insignificant, if one Oldtimer crashed a day that would barely impact on national statistics.

I suspect one reason for the exemption from MOTs is the trend towards automation of MOTs (e.g. Belgian MOT has used automated damper tests for decades which simply say pass or fail = no flexibility for ancient cars with limited damping, luckily they are more bothered about both sides performing similarly rather than the overall effectiveness).
So in situations where a car is outside the expected limits (e.g. emissions) the system could stumble especially with the limits being continually reduced.
Given the UKs notoriously appalling state computer systems they might not be able to incorporate the necessary amount of flexibility and are simply avoiding potential problems.

There is an issue of people using old cars as a way of reducing their tax & insurance costs and those who do so primarily for that reason rather than enthusiasm for old cars could well be a problem, but there are far more like minded people who simply choose not to pay road tax or insurance - which is easier to do under the UK system than most others - but changes to the UK road tax system and the expansion of Big Brother (ANPR) might improve that situation.

[VIVA GT]

The Automatic Numberplate Recognition System will need to have a serious upgrade to catch cars running on the road without MOT. Working as I do 'in the motor-trade' I am astounded at the number of cars brought to us for MOT testing where the previous certificate expired literally months ago!
I am also amazed at the attitude of a number of drivers who don't appear to realise the seriousness of running a car without a valid MOT. We find now that the main reason for motorists to have their car MOT'd is so that they can but a new road fund license, meaning that the cars are brought to us as close to the end of the month as possible. Then, if the car fails there is an immediate panic that "I've got to get this sorted as I need to tax my car". All of this is despite the fact that it is possible to have the test up to one month before expiry and keep (if it passes) the anniversary date of the previous certificate, or that they've been driving around for the past few months undetected without an MOT anyway!
There are a number of motoring laws which are just not being enforced here at the moment (I was followed on my way home from work yesterday by a lady in a BMW who was holding her 'phone to her ear for over 10 minutes!), but because our road safety figures are improving (mostly I am sure due to improved passive safety in vehicles), these things are not considered to be an issue.
OK, rant over, I am now going for a lie-down!

[Al Weyman]

I'm not sure it would be difficult surely all the software is in place already in the same way as DVLA check insurance and MoT when you tax a car online.

[PeterMorley]

Having tried to tax online a UK car that was insured and had a recent MOT I have very little faith in the ANPR system.
It took weeks for the insurance to be recognised on the system, despite the insurance company doing the necessary from their end immediately.
Presumably when enough people have been stopped or issued with demands/fines unnecessarily the system might be improved, or more likely the authorities will rely on it less.

Perhaps it is just another variant of the TV detector van, making it look like you have the technology is enough to encourage people to pay up.

[Tim Falce]

The ANPR system already recognises cars with no MOT and I had a car reinsured last week and it went on the database the same day. MOTs go on the database as they are logged in and even driving licences are checkable online now so I don't see that there would be many problems apart from when you get the over zealous copper that can't see the wood for the trees, Hmmmm OK there will be problems.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Tim Falce

The ANPR system already recognises cars with no MOT and I had a car reinsured last week and it went on the database the same day. MOTs go on the database as they are logged in and even driving licences are checkable online now so I don't see that there would be many problems apart from when you get the over zealous copper that can't see the wood for the trees, Hmmmm OK there will be problems.

Hi Tim, but as I've outlined in my posting above. The current ANPR system isn't picking up cars driving around without MOT as we keep seeing cars presented for a test, that have been driving around on the road for months without one!
(I do realise however that with my luck, I'd be caught by the one and only operating camera on minute past midnight on the day after my MOT expired if I tried!)

[Tim Falce]

Viva, If you watch that annoying **** on the Ch5 Police Camera wotsit show with the arrogant coppers in their oh so marvellous Beemers then you are led to believe otherwise.
One point on the anpr system is my daughter managed to drive around with no road fund licence and the car registered at the wrong address for 6 months. She didn't find out until I pointed out to her the error of her ways but in the meantime she'd been making regular trips between Tavistock, Plymouth, London and Liverpool, I'm sure in all that time she would have passed more than one anpr car or fixed camera. She rectified the mistake over twelve months ago and although she's now emigrated we've heard nothing back.
To make it more laughable she even fessed up to the DVLA where they fined her £40 (I think) plus one months back tax, they at no point bothered about the other 5 months she owed.

[VIVA GT]

Hi Tim. I know that the propaganda machine leads us to believe that these things work, and work well, I was just pointing out what is really happening out there in the real world!
I do think that it's exactly the same scenario as a fleet of Commer Spacevans driving around the country with spinning roof racks supposedly detecting if you have a TV license or not!
I honestly do wish that the system worked, and as close to 100% efficiency as possible. I'm no saint, but I have always paid my Road Tax, Insurance, and made sure any vehicles of mine on the road have a current MOT. I object to paying for all of the dodgers who don't.

[midgetman]

So what you're saying is, the honest ones among us get screwed ever harder while the scrotes continue to get away with it. Plus ca change.

igh:

[grantp]

Someone I know drove around for the best part of a year quite oblivious that he had no insurance.

The policy was on automatic renewal, or so he thought, so he did not pay much attention to detailed reading of correspondence from the insurer at renewal time.

I year later when he received a "special offer" letter from the insurance company to 'rejoin' them he wondered what they were talking about and only then discovered that they had moved away from an automatic renewal system for the previous year.

It seems that no one and no cameras picked him up during that time. I think the road tax and insurance coincided as he had had the car from new.

On the positive side he had saved a year's premium and got the 'returning customer' discount ... and he was covered when the car was written off by an errant truck on a motorway a year or so later.

[Colin McKay]

Just revisited the DfT's survey pages on this OT. They are running 3 parallel surveys for different vehicle types and interesting to note that the car crowd are overwhelmingly in favour of testing all cars, the commercial/bus lot are split 50/50 (maybe because of the higher cost & inconvenience of testing these vehicles) whereas the bikers are mostly up for total exemption. To quote Brad from Rocky Horror "life comes cheap to that sort"