How much should an MOT cost?

The maximum is set in law, not by the garage

MOT fees are capped by regulations made under the Road Traffic Act, and the current car figure was set by the Motor Vehicles (Tests) (Amendment) Regulations 2010, which replaced £54.00 with £54.85 for class IV vehicles and set £29.65 for motor bicycles without a side car. Those provisions came into force on 6 April 2010 and have not been amended since. A station that quotes £70 for a car test is not driving a hard bargain, it is charging more than the law allows.

The cap applies to the test, and it applies per class rather than per garage. Every station in the country works to the same ceiling, whether it is a single ramp behind a village garage or a franchised dealer with a marble reception. That is unusual in car servicing, where nothing else is price capped, and it is the reason the MOT is one of the few motoring costs you can budget for exactly.

The ceiling has stood for more than fifteen years while wages and premises costs have not, which is why the trade keeps asking for a review and why so few stations charge the maximum in a competitive town. It is also why the fee is a poor guide to the quality of the work: the price is a marketing decision, and the standard is set by DVSA.

• Car, motor caravan or goods vehicle up to 3,000kg, class 4: £54.85.
• Motorcycle up to 200cc, class 1, and over 200cc, class 2: £29.65.
• Three wheeled vehicle up to 450kg, class 3: £37.80.
• Goods vehicle between 3,000kg and 3,500kg, class 7: £58.60.
• Private passenger vehicle with 9 to 12 passenger seats, class 4: £57.30.
• Private passenger vehicle with 13 to 16 passenger seats, class 5: £59.55, and £80.65 above 16 seats.

Why most garages charge less

A test occupies a qualified tester, a ramp and a set of calibrated equipment for the best part of an hour, so at the full fee it is not a generous piece of work. Stations discount it because it puts cars on the ramp. Whoever tests your car is the garage best placed to quote for the repairs it needs, and the retest rules push you back to the same station, so a cheap test is an introduction to a customer rather than a loss.

That is not a reason to distrust a cheap test, but it is a reason to keep the two transactions separate in your head. The test is a pass or a fail against a published standard. The repair quote that follows is an ordinary commercial offer you are free to take elsewhere, and the failure sheet gives another garage everything it needs to price the same work.

Where a low headline price does deserve a question is when it is tied to something else: a test at half the maximum on condition you buy a service, or a price that applies only if you leave the car for the day. Neither is improper. Both are worth pricing as a bundle rather than as a bargain on the test.

What the fee covers, and what it does not

The fee buys the inspection and the result, nothing else. It does not include repairs, parts, topping up fluids, resetting a warning lamp or adjusting anything the tester finds out of tolerance. It does not include a service, and the MOT is not a service: the test does not cover the condition of the engine, the clutch or the gearbox at all, which surprises people who assume a pass means the car is mechanically sound.

Retests are governed by their own rules rather than by the station's price list. Leave the vehicle on site and have it retested within ten working days and no fee may be charged. Take it away and bring it back to the same station before the end of the next working day, with only items from DVSA's list to fix, and again there is no fee. Return later than that but inside ten working days and the station may charge for a partial retest, capped at half the statutory maximum, so no more than about £27 on a car.

A pre MOT check is a separate commercial service and is not capped at anything. It can be genuinely useful before a first test or on a car you have just bought, because it turns a surprise into a plan. It is also the easiest place for a bill to grow, so agree what is being checked and what it costs before the car goes in.

What to watch for

The first check is the arithmetic. If the invoice for the test alone is above the maximum for the class, ask for it to be corrected. The second is the retest. If you took the car away, fixed a bulb and a wiper blade and returned it the next morning, that retest should be free, and being charged for it is worth querying against the rule rather than accepting as house policy.

The third is the line between defects and advisories. Only dangerous and major items fail a vehicle. Minor items and advisories do not, and a quote that mixes all four together into one number makes it impossible to see what you are legally obliged to do. Ask for the work to be split into what failed the test and what the tester noted for the future, then decide on each list separately.

The last one is the paperwork. The result is recorded in the MOT database and you can pull it up yourself from the number plate, so you do not need to rely on a printed sheet or pay anyone to interpret it. If the record and the invoice disagree about what happened, the record is the one everybody else will look at later.

• An invoice for the test above the class maximum is wrong, not expensive.
• A free retest is a rule, not a favour, when you meet the conditions for one.
• Get failures and advisories quoted as two separate lists.
• Check the online MOT record against what you were told.

Is a cheaper test a worse test?

The standard does not move with the price. Every tester works to DVSA's inspection manual, the equipment has to be calibrated, and the result goes into a national database that DVSA monitors. A station that passes cars it should not is risking its authorisation and the tester's licence, which is a far bigger loss than the fee on any one test.

What price can change is the experience around the test: how long you wait, whether the car is washed, whether the reception is staffed, whether the tester will walk you round the car and show you the defect. If those matter to you they are worth paying for. If what you want is an honest pass or fail and a clear failure sheet, a discounted test and one at the full £54.85 are buying you the same thing.

The one place to be careful is the opposite of a cheap test, which is a free one. A test offered free with other work is legal, and the station still has to do it properly. Just read what the other work is, because the total is what you are paying, and the retest rules still apply to whichever station carried out the test.