old/new MOT's

[paul1763]

my car passed its mot today without any problems thank god, i go 1 month early to allow time to fix anything but was wondering if it failed,that would obviously be registered with VOSA. so can you legally use the old ticket as a get out if stopped by police? as you will still have 1 month left but you know its not legally road worthy.

[ChuckFickens]

Yes you can, failing an MOT doesn't invalidate the old MOT.

[paul1763]

thanks chuckfickens was just wondering if a new failure would set off the ANPR readers

[Toureman]

This is taken from VOSA.............

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.

[ChuckFickens]

There is no way to invalidate a MOT! a MOT is valid for 12months regardless of failing another test.

There is a separate offence of driving an unroadworthy vehicle which you may be guilty of if you continue to drive a car after it's failed a test unless you get the fault rectified.

For example. if you were to take you car for an MOT a month before it's due and it failed on a tyre you have a car that's unroadworthy (which you could be prosecuted for)... but if you went straight to a tyre dealer and got a new tyre you now have a roadworthy vehicle that is still covered by a valid MOT.

[Hopkirk]

I think Chuck is remembering the old days when an old style MOT certificate was written out.

I think it changed when they went to a computerised central system.

Effectively the MOT certificate is pretty well redundant now, except for taxing the car at a post office and selling it on .

The true status of the car is the central computer record.