Proposed Changes to MOT Tests.  First at 4 Years Old then Every 2 Years?  Right or Wrong?

The government in the form of then Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has stated it’s looking to reduce the burden of the MOT test.  Those in the know suggest that the government believes that rather than a vehicle being 3 years old at it first MOT that could change to 4 years with subsequent MOT tests then taking place every 2 years.

Is that the right thing to do? Well lets apply some logic to this and start by looking at the people that oppose the changes and as you might expect, organisations such as Kwik-Fit, Halfords and the Retail Motor Industry Federation all think it’s a bad idea.  OK, I can hear you saying “they would, wouldn’t they” and that they only oppose it because they will lose business if the changes go through and indeed that’s true and it’s claimed also that up to 40,000 jobs and apprenticeships in the MOT industry could be lost as a result.

So, with that in mind, what they are really saying is that the job loses will come as a result of a downturn in work, in other words, repairs and maintenance that were previously carried out to vehicles to keep them in tip top condition, simply wont be carried out in future.

Now I don’t know about you, but our experience is that garages don’t ask us to have work done to our vehicles that doesn’t need doing and I can’t imagine that too many motorists or fleet operators would give the authority for a repair or service work that simply does not need to be done. So what we are actually going to be faced with is that work that should be done to keep vehicles safe, simply not get done, meaning the cars and vans that travel around us every day are unquestionably going to be more dangerous.

So to keep ourselves and our family’s safe, we would call upon the government not to proceed with any changes. Don’t forget, that whilst you might well take care of your car and keep it in a proper condition, that when things are tight and money even tighter, the driver coming towards you in traffic (if the changes are made) might not have had any professional inspection on his car for up to 4 years or up to 2 years for older cars and who knows the mileage a vehicle might have covered in that time?

Funny isn’t it that at a time when we are talking of making gaps in MOT’s longer, we are telling mini-bus owners that they should have them inspected every 10 weeks, even if they only do just a few hundred miles in that 10 week period.  Certainly there are some dual standards here when a brand new mini-bus with say only 1,000 miles on the clock should be inspected, yet a 6 year old car with perhaps 150,000 on the clock at 6 years old could be just due for only its second inspection ever!

We all hate it when are cars are due for MOT and worry like an expectant father till we here from the garage doing the job, but it’s a necessary evil and OK, it might cost us something in repairs to replace something that’s worn out, but what ever we spend, its got to be better than driving around in a car that could kill us, or somebody else.

Unfortunately, running a vehicle is expensive and many people see having to get their car fixed as a distress purchase and will avoid it if possible and on that basis, we need a law in place to make certain that at least once a year, the vehicle has to fall into the hands of an independent inspector who can ensure that the vehicle is safe or that it simply does not hit the road again until it is!

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