MOT on car coming up to 3 years old

[mattgod69]

Hi, apologies if this is a daft set of questions.

My car, which is three years old at the end of this month, recently failed its MOT due to a small split in the rear tyre. Obviously, the tyre was changed as quickly as possible (next day) and the car was not used other than to drive to get the tyre done. However, does anyone know if the MOT will be dated from the original test date or the retest date or from the extended to the end of the month which will be three years from registration? ideally, it would be from the end of the month as this gives me more time after Christmas to get the MOT done in future, January is hectic enough without having to worry about MOT immediately after Christmas.

Also, the garage seemed to think that the car could not be driven as it has an MOT failure (i think it was a Major item), even though it is not yet three years old and the item it failed on has now been replaced? What made a slightly more annoying is the fact the garage could not do the retest for a few days, although we have made contingency plans to deal with this now.

Any comments or thoughts greatly appreciated.

Regards.

Matt

[martinbiz]

Why would they think the car would not be driven, is that relevant? , if the car has Been retested and passed, the mot will run until the 4 year anniversary of the date when it was registered, not from the date of the retest

[CubanPete]

Car has MOT

Car is roadworthy as unroadworthy bit replaced.

[stevemcs]

If it’s classed as a dangerous defect then it should not be driven away (not that we can stop customers) however a major fail can be driven.

Providing you are 29 days or less from when it was first registered then the mot date should be 12 months from date of registered date. Retest should be a simple thing, for something like this it should be possible for the same day but you are covered providing it’s not a dangerous defect.

[martinbiz]

So OP you have had the tyre replaced and the mot is not needed until the end of the month, so what actually is your question ?

[Dogwatch]

To be fair to the testing garage, driving on a defective tyre is to be discouraged. For all they know someone might be going to hammer it down a motorway with unknown consequences.

If the OP wants more time for financial recovery after Christmas, and I share his pain, he can have it retested at any time after the end of this month and thereafter annually before the new date.

[LosingGrip]

stevemcs said:

If it’s classed as a dangerous defect then it should not be driven away (not that we can stop customers) however a major fail can be driven.

Providing you are 29 days or less from when it was first registered then the mot date should be 12 months from date of registered date. Retest should be a simple thing, for something like this it should be possible for the same day but you are covered providing it’s not a dangerous defect.

Just on that...can drive and MOT will still be valid, but could be other offences if stopped by the police.

[martinbiz]

Dogwatch said:

To be fair to the testing garage, driving on a defective tyre is to be discouraged. For all they know someone might be going to hammer it down a motorway with unknown consequences.

If the OP wants more time for financial recovery after Christmas, and I share his pain, he can have it retested at any time after the end of this month and thereafter annually before the new date.

Not at any time, l believe there is a time limit for a retest And of course he won’t be able to drive it after the end of the month until it passes an mot

[TriumphStag3.0V8]

Yes as has been already discussed if the car hasn't reached 3 years from.first registration at the time of retest and it's less than a month from that date then the retest will put a new MOT on the car from the anniversary of its registration.

If 3 years has already passed from the date of first registration or this is more than 1 month away then the MOT will be from the date of the pass.

You can take out a new MOT at any point you like, in fact I did this with one of my older vehicles as I did not want it to expire in the winter when it's horrible outside to try and work on it, so I put it in for a new MOT when it's still had 6 months left meaning the renewal date was moved to one year from the date I put it in. Effectively I lost 6 months of MOT but it did put the MOT into the summer which is much better for fixing fault

[Pothole]

martinbiz said:

Why would they think the car would not be driven, is that relevant? , if the car has Been retested and passed, the mot will run until the 4 year anniversary of the date when it was registered, not from the date of the retest

This is a pet peeve. What do you think "anniversary" means?

This might help.

[mattgod69]

martinbiz said:

So OP you have had the tyre replaced and the mot is not needed until the end of the month, so what actually is your question ?

Everyone, thank you for your comments.

I am wondering if the garage are giving me great information. They are telling me that the MOT will be now be the middle of January when the original test was as the car did fail the MOT. I think that if the car passes then they put the registration date on it but as it has failed they cannot do this. I am not sure if he is correct in saying this.

Bizarrely, I think that the tyre should only have failed if the crack was greater than 25 mm and looking from the photo it didn't seem like it was.

That is not a problem as the tyre has now been replaced. They said the fact that I had a test means that the end of the month is now not relevant, the car failed and cannot be used until the retest (which is tomorrow).

Cheers.

Matt

[martinbiz]

mattgod69 said:

Everyone, thank you for your comments.

I am wondering if the garage are giving me great information. They are telling me that the MOT will be now be the middle of January when the original test was as the car did fail the MOT. I think that if the car passes then they put the registration date on it but as it has failed they cannot do this. I am not sure if he is correct in saying this.

Bizarrely, I think that the tyre should only have failed if the crack was greater than 25 mm and looking from the photo it didn't seem like it was.

That is not a problem as the tyre has now been replaced. They said the fact that I had a test means that the end of the month is now not relevant, the car failed and cannot be used until the retest (which is tomorrow).

Cheers.

Matt

They are talking rubbish, the fact the car failed is irrelevant, it does not need a valid mot until 3 years from the date of registration, if you get a valid mot before that date then fine and it will start from the 3 year date if you don’t then you will not be able to drive it after the 3 year date. If you then get an mot let’s say 7th February for example the mot will be valid from that date

[mattgod69]

martinbiz said:

They are talking rubbish, the fact the car failed is irrelevant, it does not need a valid mot until 3 years from the date of registration, if you get a valid mot before that date then fine and it will start from the 3 year date if you don’t then you will not be able to drive it after the 3 year date. If you then get an mot let’s say 7th February for example the mot will be valid from that date

Thanks Martin. like I say, the tyre has been replaced and is being retested tomorrow so we will have a valid MOT easily by the end of the month. I have a feeling they might put last week (the original test eight) as the date of the MOT though, with the expiry 12 months from that date rather than the end of this month. The testing station was a Ford dealership by the way.

I will let you know what is actually on the certificate.

regards.

Matt

[martinbiz]

Tell them to do it properly then. TBH it’s all electronic now so I would be surprised if the system doesn’t automatically do it from the 3 year registration date, you would think a main dealer would know

[Wooda80]

They may be right when they say the certificate will run from the date it was issued rather than from the car's 3rd birthday.

I've had several cars MOT'd early when they've been sold at 30-35 months old and they come back MOT'd from the test date.

Plenty of MOT testers on here who can confirm and explain I'm sure.

[Lonely]

OP - This is the internet.

The internet is full of 'experts'.

Some 'experts' have good advice, some don't.

When you get into an argument with the garage I'm absolutely certain they will not bow down to the reasoning of "Some unknown guy/girl on PistonHeads said........."

Read and learn for yourself to be sure - https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot

[Pica-Pica]

Wooda80 said:

They may be right when they say the certificate will run from the date it was issued rather than from the car's 3rd birthday.

I've had several cars MOT'd early when they've been sold at 30-35 months old and they come back MOT'd from the test date.

Plenty of MOT testers on here who can confirm and explain I'm sure.

First MOT will be dated at 3 years from first registration date, NOT from test date (Why should it?, the MOT is not due until 3 years). That assumes it was tested within the final month of that 3 year period. Mine was tested on 6th December 2019, date of first registration was 13th December 2016, and thus my next MOT is due 13 December 2020 (and that is what government website confirms).
Not withstanding any MOT, passed, failed or missed; a car can be deemed unroadworthy at anytime.

Edited by Pica-Pica on Monday 20th January 18:33

[stevemcs]

The MOT test date cannot be changed by the tester, so if the first registered date is 31/01/2017 and its presented for its MOT from the 2/01/2020 onwards then the new MOT expiry date will be 31/01/21. If its presented on the 31/12/2019 then its MOT expiry date would be 31/12/21. If its presented early then it flags a warning (at this point we call the customer just to make sure they are happy to proceed)

Once its been tested you have 10 working days to have the free retest.

If it has a major failure it can be driven on the road until the MOT expires or it reaches its 3rd birthday

If it has a dangerous defect it should not go back on the road

[mattgod69]

stevemcs said:

The MOT test date cannot be changed by the tester, so if the first registered date is 31/01/2017 and its presented for its MOT from the 2/01/2020 onwards then the new MOT expiry date will be 31/01/21. If its presented on the 31/12/2019 then its MOT expiry date would be 31/12/21. If its presented early then it flags a warning (at this point we call the customer just to make sure they are happy to proceed)

Once its been tested you have 10 working days to have the free retest.

If it has a major failure it can be driven on the road until the MOT expires or it reaches its 3rd birthday

If it has a dangerous defect it should not go back on the road

This was my understanding, but the tester seemed to think that because it had a failure, it was registered on the system as such, even though it was less than three years old. Furthermore, because it had the failure registered on the system, the car did not have an MOT, even though of course it strictly speaking is not needed until the end of this month.

I think someone can MOT a car any time, even say two years after it is new. Once it has an MOT, then presumably there is the requirement to do it annually? If someone did do this then could they just use that MOT certificate as an interesting piece of paper, so even if there is a fail, assuming it is not dangerous then the car can still be used, because it is less than three years old?

Edited by mattgod69 on Monday 20th January 18:50

[martinbiz]

Wooda80 said:

They may be right when they say the certificate will run from the date it was issued .

Wrong, as confirmed above