MOT fail - garage says I can't drive my car?!?
Discussion
My wife's car failed its MOT today with a frayed passenger seatbelt. The old MOT expires on 9 Feb. But the garage says that now it has failed an MOT I can't drive it (unless driving it to a prearranged test).
Are they taking the piss? It has a perfectly valid MOT, but it is now stuck at the garage until next week when the parts arrive. They have me over a barrel to charge what they want to fix it too.
Are they taking the piss? It has a perfectly valid MOT, but it is now stuck at the garage until next week when the parts arrive. They have me over a barrel to charge what they want to fix it too.
The car isnt in a dangerous/unroadworthy condition, it still has a valid test cert therefore they have no grounds to stop you from driving away to get the fault repaired
From the Gov.uk website
Driving a vehicle that’s failed
You can take your vehicle away if your MOT certificate is still valid.
If your MOT has run out you can take your vehicle to:
have the failed defects fixed
a pre-arranged MOT test appointment
In both cases, your vehicle still needs to meet the minimum standards of roadworthiness at all times or you can be fined.
From the Gov.uk website
Driving a vehicle that’s failed
You can take your vehicle away if your MOT certificate is still valid.
If your MOT has run out you can take your vehicle to:
have the failed defects fixed
a pre-arranged MOT test appointment
In both cases, your vehicle still needs to meet the minimum standards of roadworthiness at all times or you can be fined.
sparkythecat said:
Doofus said:
Your old MOT was superceded by submitting to a new test.
There are rules about driving to and from an MOT, but your old certificate is no longer valid. You can't just pretend the test in which you failed didn't take place.
You just made that up, didn't you ?There are rules about driving to and from an MOT, but your old certificate is no longer valid. You can't just pretend the test in which you failed didn't take place.
Doofus said:
Your old MOT was superceded by submitting to a new test.
There are rules about driving to and from an MOT, but your old certificate is no longer valid. You can't just pretend the test in which you failed didn't take place.
Simply wrong. There are rules about driving to and from an MOT, but your old certificate is no longer valid. You can't just pretend the test in which you failed didn't take place.
OP.... Its your car and belongs to you (obviously!)... The garage have absolutely no right to impound your property.
Retrieve your vehicle ASAP.
s off, also a frayed passenger seat belt almost unheard of, have you had a look at it to see what it looks like? You might find the next MOT garage up the road will pass it, unless a dog has been chewing the seat belt or something as that is an odd fail.It may be that the garage are saying that the car is unroadworthy because the passenger seatbelt is defective.........regardless of whether or not the old MOT is valid. I seem to remember that MOT failure certificates used to have a section where the tester could point out any unroadworthy items - I can't see that on the new failure certificates.
Personally I wouldn't have thought that frayed passenger seatbelt renders a car unroadworthy, although I might be inclined to not use whichever passenger seat it is until the new belt is fitted.
However, I'm not an MOT tester or any other kind of expert.
Personally I wouldn't have thought that frayed passenger seatbelt renders a car unroadworthy, although I might be inclined to not use whichever passenger seat it is until the new belt is fitted.
However, I'm not an MOT tester or any other kind of expert.
You can drive home from a failed test as long as the car isn’t unroadworthy (unsafe), if there is no passenger then it’s clearly unaffected, so you can drive it home.
It is true that a failed MOTmeant the car no longe has a valid MOT, I understood that was changed a few years back. Obviously it’s no defence to driving a car in an unsafe condition.
It is true that a failed MOTmeant the car no longe has a valid MOT, I understood that was changed a few years back. Obviously it’s no defence to driving a car in an unsafe condition.
The Rookie said:
You can drive home from a failed test as long as the car isn’t unroadworthy (unsafe), if there is no passenger then it’s clearly unaffected, so you can drive it home.
It is true that a failed MOTmeant the car no longe has a valid MOT, I understood that was changed a few years back. Obviously it’s no defence to driving a car in an unsafe condition.
It was never the case that a failed MOT invalidated a current certificate - a frayed passenger belt does not make the car unsafe to driveIt is true that a failed MOTmeant the car no longe has a valid MOT, I understood that was changed a few years back. Obviously it’s no defence to driving a car in an unsafe condition.
Bigends said:
The car isnt in a dangerous/unroadworthy condition, it still has a valid test cert therefore they have no grounds to stop you from driving away to get the fault repaired
From the Gov.uk website
Driving a vehicle that’s failed
You can take your vehicle away if your MOT certificate is still valid.
If your MOT has run out you can take your vehicle to:
have the failed defects fixed
a pre-arranged MOT test appointment
In both cases, your vehicle still needs to meet the minimum standards of roadworthiness at all times or you can be fined.
The gov.uk website can be a bit flaky. Best to look at the wording of the relevant legislation.From the Gov.uk website
Driving a vehicle that’s failed
You can take your vehicle away if your MOT certificate is still valid.
If your MOT has run out you can take your vehicle to:
have the failed defects fixed
a pre-arranged MOT test appointment
In both cases, your vehicle still needs to meet the minimum standards of roadworthiness at all times or you can be fined.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1981/1694/regul... - specifically Section 6(2)(a)(iii).
and
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/22/schedu... - specifically Schedule 2 Section 22(1)(b) and 22(1A)(b).
The garage is talking b******s. They can't hold the OP to ransom, however much they might like to.
Mexman said:
Errr, just drive it away with no one sitting in the passenger seat?
What can go wrong?
That was actually my thoughts, but the wife wasn't happy!What can go wrong?
Thanks all for your thoughts, as you can see the care has a valid MOT, but also an MOT fail... My issue with the garage is not that the work needs to be done, but that I suspect I may have been lied to. They were very clear, the car had failed its MOT so it should not be driven as it did not have an MOT. In the interim period before the garage gets the part my wife would have wanted to use the car to commute to work, plus importantly take our son to school so ideally I'd have wanted to use it more than just taking it home / to get it fixed. We'll now have to make alternative arrangements (to be fair to the garage they did offer a courtesy car).
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