Wish me luck.....
 

... the Box goes for her first MOT under my ownership in the morning...... total running costs during my first year...... 4 tyres, plenty of super unleaded and an oil change.....fingers crossed.:dance:

Best of luck! I am lucky to live somewhere that you don't have to have the Feds looking in your underwear drawer.

Woohoo... she passed with no advisories...........:dance:

Sounds great. What all do they test?

Congrats!

Where in the UK are you? Will you ever take the car to the continent?

As I understand it, the MOT helps keep unsafe and potentially dangerous cars off the road. As the roads are shared and used by all, this helps protect everyone's safety.

Congrats on the pass. :)
I'm also curious what the inspections involve.
We used to have mandatory annual safety inspections here until sometime in the early 1990s. Not sure why they quit. It wasn't much: horn, lights, and tailpipe litmus test if I recall.
I also recall an episode of 1980s PBS show Last Chance Garage where they showed Japan's intensely involved automobile inspections where cars would be sent down a tunnel and inspected at hundreds of points by a team of inspectors. As a small island nation, it was explained, they didn't want any smoky rolling wrecks on the roads.

Mot procedure as follows:

- emissions test with exhaust lambda sensor
- all lights, signals, seatbelts and horn
- brake performance and balance testing
- undercar visual inspection, very comprehensive indeed....20 minutes
- tyre check and wheel movement check
- brake inspection, pads, discs and hoses
- full suspension check, raising axle from the ramp and vibrating 4 ways by remote ctl while under car checking for suspension, trackrods and suspension arm movement.
- general bodywork inspection.

Considering my 2.7 is nearly 12 years old and i was warned that " the running costs would be huge"........ in my 1st year of ownership she's cost me £43 for the mot, a set of new tyres and plenty of super unleaded.

Booked in for an oil change and brake fluid change soon and may change the rear pads and discs over the next few months.

Look after your car and she'll look after you.....

Si.

Believe me, I see the I'll affects from smog straight piped just about anything here. I know why many have inspections, and half the time wish we had them ourselves... Still though, freedom, 'merica.

Here in NJ we've pretty much gotten rid o f vehicle inspections. It's just way too many cars for the state bureaucracy to manage efficiently anymore. We're probably the most densely populated state in the country. Once every two years you have to take the car in for emissions test and they visually inspect to see if your exhaust is up to regulation. No checking for bald tires, functioning brakes, brake lights, headlights, etc.
Approximately 25 other states have ditched their old inspections as well. The police in these parts no longer hassle people for having an out of date inspection sticker. Maybe if you get a parking ticket and the ticket officer notices it's expired.

However this state is absolutely militant on unpaid parking tickets. If you fail to pay a single parking ticket within 90 days the town automatically sends your license plate to the motor vehicle commission for immediate suspension of driving privileges. You then have to pay the DMV $100 to re-instate the license, as well as original ticket which will probably have swelled to five times the original $20-$30. And since the state does not send the notices via registered mail, often the motorist is unaware that they were suspended over even a single parking ticket and during a routine traffic stop the police will impound the vehicle and require a costly court appearance. Ask me how I learned this. When I was paying to have my license re-instated the clerk told me that parking tickets are not the only non-driving offense that you can lose your license over, they are also suspending licenses for riding bicycles the wrong way on a one-way street, and fishing without a fishing license. A police detective I spoke to (now a lawyer) says he's astounded at the number of suspensions that he sees where driving records were otherwise spotless. It's a huge revenue maker for the state. Vehicle inspections were a huge revenue loser.