Do I have to fail an MOT to be able to drive to a place of repair?

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Hi guys, googled around but can't find a definitive answer on this one.

My MX5 has been off the road for months now, as I've gradually been repairing a load of stuff on it. During that time, the sills have taken a nose dive and there's no way it'll get through an MOT. Ideally, I would like to book it in to get repaired somewhere decent and *then* get an MOT.

However, it seems like I might only be allowed to drive it to a place of repair (pre booked of course) following a failed MOT. This would be most annoying as I doubt I'd get it turned around in time for a free retest, and hence I will have to throw money away for a test I know it's going to fail.

Thoughts, comments and general abuse all welcome :p

EDIT: oh and I should also point out the obvious - the current MOT has expired so I can't just drive it anyway :(
 
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Soldato
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The car (I assume) not being roadworthy would cause you problems even if you were driving it direct to mot and were stopped by a particularly grumpy traffic officer.

Why can't you just get it lifted from yours to wherever it will be repaired? If it's a short distance you should be able to find someone to do it for an hour of their time + fuel, shouldn't be much
 
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How much will it cost to tow it to the garage? Assuming it's SORN'ed at the moment you'll also need to sort out temp insurance as well if you're planning to drive to the garage.
 
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It's currently taxed and insured. The problem really is the variable quality of fixes for the sills. I don't want to pay for a 'just get it through MOT mate' special and then have to pay again to get it done properly. This likely means it may needs to go a relatively long way. I may just have to suck it up and for that though . .

So basically, sure I could drive it to the nearest garage, tell them to patch it up for MOT, but I'd like to avoid that if possible . .
 
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Not sure on the exact working of the law but what if your car fails a pre MOT inspection - would you be allowed to take it onwards to a place of repair then? Or do you need a full failure certificate in hand.

To be honest as you have tax/insurance I would just drive it.
 
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find the company that you want to do the work on it and have them mot it after the work is done. even if they cant mot it there, they can take it to somewhere that will. as such you will be booked in for an mot & associated repairs, it wont matter what order they do them in, just that you pre-booked your mot with them.
 
Soldato
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Who said you could drive a failure to a place of repair? They are wrong, by definition you'd be driving an unroadworthy car.
The only time you can drive a car without MOT is to a pre-booked MOT, thish is the only exception. You would/could still be done for driving an unroadworthy car if you got pulled though.
 

Kol

Kol

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Yip - I got caught out a few years ago. I was leaving the country for 18 months and thought it expired a month later, so was dropping it off at my folks. Copper pulled me over and got a £150 fine (could be a little more, can't remember). He said, however, that ANPR doesn't flash it up automatically, they have to press an extra button so it's a spot check. He demonstrated whilst sitting in the car. Proper top bloke though, understood it was a genuine error so gave me a tour of all his kit to offer a bit of 'extra value' so to speak.

No points.
 
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Who said you could drive a failure to a place of repair? They are wrong, by definition you'd be driving an unroadworthy car.
The only time you can drive a car without MOT is to a pre-booked MOT, thish is the only exception. You would/could still be done for driving an unroadworthy car if you got pulled though.


https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test
If your vehicle fails the test

If your vehicle fails the test you’ll get a ‘notification of failure’ from the test centre. The failure will be recorded in the secure central MOT database.

Until it passes a retest, you can only drive your vehicle:

to a pre-arranged appointment at a garage to have the repairs done
to a pre-arranged MOT test appointment

Your vehicle should be retested at the same test centre which did the original test.
 
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Who said you could drive a failure to a place of repair?

No-one, but I was just curious if you could do it in the same manner you can drive to an MOT with potentially the same issue :p

I had a look at how much it'll cost to get it transported to somewhere I trust to get it done properly and it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be so I'm just going to do that, save any hassle :)

EDIT: though yes, what zipp0r is refering to is what gave me the idea.
 
Soldato
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just book it in for an MOT near to where the welding is being done, then cancel it once you get to the garage with the welding gear. then rebook where its actually going to be done :p
 
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Had a right palaver getting the Manta it's MOT after it had expired while still sat in the garage. Tried to do it the honest way and called up the insurers to get it insured for the day, told them it didn't have an MOT and was promptly rebuffed since it couldn't be proven the car was roadworthy.

I conceded the point, but I don't understand how they can say that when you could have a car which has an MOT, but has become 'unroadworthy' due to unforeseen circumstances and in the eyes of the insurance company it would still be fine because it has a current MOT certificate.

Instead insured it with an online one day insurance company. Passed no problem, back in the garage tucked up for winter.
 

Kol

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Strange - when I got pulled for it, my first worry would be that my insurance was valid (then things get a whole lot worse) but the Officer said insurance was still valid, MOT made no difference. I'm sure if that wasn't the case I'd have been in a heap of trouble.
 

4T5

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just book it in for an MOT near to where the welding is being done, then cancel it once you get to the garage with the welding gear. then rebook where its actually going to be done :p

This is what I was going to say, Find an MOT place just past the Garage you will be using for repair, Book the MOT for late in the day & drive your car to the mechanic/garage early in the morning. If you get stopped then you have a pre booked MOT sorted, If you don't get stopped then just ring the MOT place from the garage & cancel it, JD.
 
Soldato
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Strange - when I got pulled for it, my first worry would be that my insurance was valid (then things get a whole lot worse) but the Officer said insurance was still valid, MOT made no difference. I'm sure if that wasn't the case I'd have been in a heap of trouble.

Unroadworthness that invalidates your insurance, not lack of MOT.

If your 3 year old honda civic cant have an MOT till a day after its 3 year anniversary of first being registered it doesnt become unroadworthy, it just doent have an MOT.
 
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