MOTs Government response - MOT, now rolling 40 years.

[Pete]

Moral of the story?

If in doubt, get it MOT'd??

[morgan]

Moral of the story?

If in doubt, get it MOT'd??

See. Thats why you are the boss. Spot on.
£50 a year for a trusted professional to look over the vital components of the car is not something I am scared of. I will be 'MOT'ing it even if its virtual rather than certified.

[Blue]

It's not that simple, to continue to MOT your car you'll need to tell the DVLA your car is modified by thier interpretation of the word and what can of worms might that open up in the future? There seems to be no option to say my car is standard but I still want to MOT it. If your car doesn't definatly fall into thier modified catagory I don't see why you would risk making life hard for yourself.

[Blue]

I'm sure the more enterprising garages will be offering an MOT style safety check on old vehicles for those that want it.

[MilesnMiles]

I guess every owner is different, but I investigate anything I don't feel happy with on the car.
Regular checks on;
ball joints, prop joints and yoke, engine and trans mounts, brake pipes etc..
front tyre wear for tell tail signs of problems, lights, fuel lines..

Its not often that an MOT finds something I wasn't already suspicious or aware of.
That said, I like the MOT check as I've been allowed to inspect the underside of the car more thoroughly on a ramp which is really useful.

[lemans-tom]

I see there is a lot of panic over at rods n sods and the like. Maybe they have more to panic about because of the nature of their cars.

But I think you ignore the modified bit at your peril. I work closely with the civil service for my day job and I understand how these guys think. When it comes to our sort of fun - the government are generally not on our side.

I don't think its as simple as simply getting an MoT, (which in itself is probably a sensible thing to do) to self exempt yourself from whatever is being hatched.

The details are not finalised yet, but it looks like you will have to make a legal declaration at road tax time whether your car is modified and that is a long slippery slope to nowhere good. That declaration is a legal and binding document, so you're kippered.

The DfT says they have no definition of modified so are relying on the BIVA 8 point system (don't forget the 15% power increase rule). This came in around 1988 I think, which explains the apparent random cut off date.

My gut feel tells me there is a very high proportion of members on here who simply qualify to be classed as modified just by the 15% power increase. After all its not hard to achieve with some of our sorts of motors in stock form.

Declare as not modified - you're breaking the law. Declare as modified, who knows where that leads in future - full road tax, special insurance rates, inspections - legislated off the road as a public menace or worse still held up as some sort of cash cow to be milked by all and sundry etc.

I hope what the rodder's are expecting doesn't transpire, but experience tells me to expect the worse case scenario and be grateful if it doesn't come about.

[MilesnMiles]

Fair point Tom, however and we'll have to wait and see,but what is the real power output of our cars?

The factories upped/lowered HP outputs depending on what insurance companies where thinking at that time back in the day.

I recall Mopar Action some years ago having a rolling road at one of their shows. Only one or two cars got close to the expected HP, most didn't even make factory stated HP, I cant imagine how a stretched civil service could access useful power output data 40/50 years on.

Its interesting that they recognise that more modern 80s classics wont be MOT exempt because they had decent power ratings.
I imagine to most politicians a 'classic' car is an Anglia, Jag, or other Brit under performing car. I wonder if yanks even came up in any discussions?

[MilesnMiles]

I did some more digging around various sites for this discussion.
One owner of a radically lowered VW Beetle got refused an MOT because he had notched and altered the chassis rails. That is a radical alteration and should be seen as such.
Fitting aftermarket headers is not.
As Matt implied earlier in the thread, come next May you exempt your car from MOT, therefore no one is going to check it over. The 'worst case scenario is an accident where at that point an obviously altered vehicle could put the owner in trouble for lying about the declaration he made in May 2018, but if it fell foul of Constructions and Uses regs it still would today.,
Otherwise its not going to happen.

meantime, I can se the prices of original Mopar snorkel air cleaners going through the roof

[morgan]

I'm sure the more enterprising garages will be offering an MOT style safety check on old vehicles for those that want it.

This is what I meant Blue. My intention is to take it to my MOT man for him to look over it once a year. I'll pay him to do so. Small comfort to make sure the basics are as they should be. I didnt mean 'formal MOT'.

[mad machs]

I do welcome the extra pair eyes the MoT test gives, I like to think that I keep on top of the maintenance of the Mustang and The Dodge but there is always something you can miss, my MoT guy always says those two are a treat to test, it's my daily runners that are the sheds

[Super Sloth]

It's not that simple, to continue to MOT your car you'll need to tell the DVLA your car is modified by thier interpretation of the word and what can of worms might that open up in the future? There seems to be no option to say my car is standard but I still want to MOT it. If your car doesn't definatly fall into thier modified catagory I don't see why you would risk making life hard for yourself.

It can be that simple. There's nothing stopping you currently from taking your pre '60 car down the local test centre, pay your money and come home with a pass certificate. It gets logged on the MOT database just the same as anything else over 3 years old.

*edit* although according to the latest government data, only 6% of pre '60 owners bother!

[Blue]

Ah I didn't realise that I had assumed it would be the same as road tax exemption, as in no means to pay for it even if you wanted to, computer says no...

[lemans-tom]

I do genuinely hope this fizzles out like a chinese sparkler on bonfire night. But I lived in NZ for a few years. This is a country where the culture is a bit US like, very anti big government, liberal, you can get a driving licence at 15. But, and its a big but, if you had a rod or car deemed to be modified the rules were draconian and expensive, special inspections etc.

[PaulR]

great thread this -lots of panicking on other forums and fartbook.
Pete has just said about roll cages which has crossed my mind as about to get mine done by mr robinson -should I carry on regardless ?
apart from fact I am mini-tubbed and inboard springs...


ps -very good post Matt.

Dave, I would not worry. Having looked at your mini tubs and inboard springs you've done such a great job nobody would spot these as modifications. Compared to my Dart with standard wheel tubs it would need a very trained eye to spot the mods.
Trust me there is no resource in place to inspect modified vehicles.
Crap idea to get rid of the MOT for historic vehicles. The MOT standard is so low you would not want to drive a car that cannot meet the MINIMUM standard of the MOT test. I can concur with Matt mechanical failure as a cause of RTA is extremley rare but a basic inspection at the time of MOT is a safety net to catch the real old crud.

[Super Sloth]

A few more thoughts on this...

I had a '58 Ford 100e back in 2013 which was MOT exempt. The system was still in transition back then. When we bought the car we weren't able to tax the thing online or by phone as you can now. We had to go down the post office to "tax" it.
As part of that process instead of asking to see the MOT certificate there was a little declaration form to fill out that we were self certifying the car as safe for road use.

I would imagine there will be a similar setup for the latest batch of MOT exempt classics?