MOT failure: what happens next

Read the result before you talk about money

The test produces four kinds of entry, and only two of them cause a failure. A dangerous defect means a direct and immediate risk to road safety or a serious impact on the environment. A major defect may affect safety, put other road users at risk or harm the environment. Either one fails the vehicle. A minor defect has no significant effect on safety and does not fail it. An advisory is a note that something is on its way to becoming a problem.

That distinction decides the next hour of your day, so ask the tester which category each item sits in rather than accepting a list of faults. The wording is on the printed result and in the MOT record online, and the two should match. Minor items and advisories are useful planning information, and they are also the items to be sceptical about if they arrive attached to a quote you did not ask for.

A refusal of a test certificate is recorded against the vehicle, so a fail is public. Anyone can pull the history up later on the MOT history service and see what failed, what was noted as minor and what the mileage was on the day. That cuts both ways: it is the reason a buyer can check your car, and it is the reason you can check theirs.

• Dangerous: fails. Do not drive the vehicle at all until it is repaired.
• Major: fails. You may drive away only if a valid certificate still covers the vehicle.
• Minor: passes. Recorded, worth fixing, no deadline.
• Advisory: passes. A warning about wear that will eventually become a defect.

Whether you can drive it away

There is one test for this and GOV.UK states both halves of it. You can take the vehicle away if your current MOT certificate is still valid and no dangerous problems were recorded. Both conditions have to hold. If either fails, the car stays where it is until it is repaired.

The common version of this is the car tested a fortnight early. The previous certificate has two weeks left, the new test records a major defect, and the owner drives home lawfully on the old certificate and books the work for the weekend. That is fine. Change the defect to dangerous and the same journey becomes an offence under section 40A of the Road Traffic Act 1988, with a fine of up to £2,500, three penalty points and a possible ban. A valid certificate is not a defence, because the offence is about the state of the vehicle rather than the paperwork.

If the certificate has already expired and the car has failed, the only lawful journeys left are to or from somewhere it is being repaired. In practice that usually means having the work done at the test station, or arranging recovery. Neither of those is a lawful option if the defect is dangerous and the repair is somewhere else: the car needs to move on a trailer, not under its own power.

The three retest routes, and what each costs

Leave the vehicle at the test station, have the repair done there, and have it retested within ten working days, and the retest is free. The vehicle has to stay on site for the whole period. This is the cleanest route and the one the fee rules were written around.

Take the vehicle away for the repair and return it to the same station before the end of the next working day, and the partial retest is also free, as long as everything it failed on comes from DVSA's list of straightforward items. That list runs to more than thirty entries and covers the things a competent owner can put right in an evening: lamps, mirrors, wipers and washers, registration plates, the horn, seats, doors, the fuel filler cap, the battery, wheels and tyres and the rest.

Take it away and come back later than the next working day but still inside ten working days, and you still only need a partial retest rather than a full one, but the station may charge for it. The ceiling is half the statutory maximum test fee for the class, so no more than about £27 on a car. Both free routes depend on returning to the station that failed the vehicle: a different station means a full test at the full fee. Only one partial re examination is permitted per full test, so a second round of failures means starting again.

• Repaired at the station, retested within ten working days: free.
• Taken away, back before the end of the next working day, listed items only: free.
• Taken away, back within ten working days: partial retest, up to half the maximum fee.
• Back after ten working days, or at a different station: full test at the full fee.

Deciding where to have the work done

The station that failed the car has the advantage on fees and the disadvantage of being the only quote in the room. For a cheap, listed item there is rarely anything to gain by moving the car. For a large job, a second price from an independent garage often saves more than the retest fee costs, and you can still return within ten working days for the partial retest.

Ask for the failure sheet before you take a quote anywhere. It names the defect and the location on the vehicle, which is what another garage needs in order to price the same job rather than a bigger one. If a quote comes back covering items that were minor or advisory rather than the ones that actually failed, separate the two lists and decide on each one on its own merits.

There is also a route for a result you believe is simply wrong. DVSA takes complaints and appeals about MOT tests, and it works best if the vehicle is left exactly as it came out of the test until the matter has been looked at. That is a real trade off, because the car cannot be driven in the meantime.

After the repair

A pass puts a new certificate in the MOT record, and the expiry date depends on when the original test happened rather than when the retest did. Check the new expiry on the certificate, because a car tested well before its old expiry date can come out of a failure and a retest with an anniversary that has moved.

The tax is the other loose end. You cannot tax a vehicle that needs an MOT and does not have one, and the MOT record can take up to two days to update after a pass, so leave a working day of slack if the tax is due at the same time. If the repairs are going to take longer than that, declare a SORN and take the vehicle out of the enforcement systems while it sits.