If you find that your MOT is up around the time when you are going on a road trip then you ought to get it done before you head on your travels. Here is what to expect.
So you’ve bought your first car ready for a road trip away with your friends. However, before you can take it away with you, it’s important that its MOT certificate is up to date.
This can be a stressful experience if you have never had your car MOTed before, all you know is that if things go wrong you could be told that you can’t take it on holiday with you until you have had it fixed. Even so, if your car is at least three years old you are required by law to have it tested.
After all, you don’t want to come back off your holiday with penalty points on your license because you have been pulled over for a random check and a police officer has found that your MOT certificate is out of date.
Thankfully, getting ready for your first test shouldn’t be too complicated and meeting the technician who will conduct your MOT should be fairly straightforward.
First off, make sure you choose a trusted centre to book an MOT test. Do not worry if you notice that your MOT renewal date coincides with when you want to travel as you can book in to have this done up to a month before? You will then be sent a letter detailing your appointment time and told where to put your vehicle when you turn up.
Try to arrive at least ten minutes before your allotted appointment time just to ensure you are not late. Otherwise, you could end up missing your appointment and you don’t want to have to put off your holidays because you haven’t had your MOT done yet.
Keep your car running at a normal temperature and if the technician notices that your car is expelling a lot of black smoke then they may refuse to conduct the test because the emissions are too high to be legally roadworthy.
Make sure you have cleaned your car and emptied out any clutter before you get to the test centre too as the technician can refuse to test it if it is too dirty or can fail it if the clutter is deemed to be causing an obstruction.
When ready, the technician will call you into the test centre to conduct your MOT. You then hand your keys over so that your vehicle can be checked and for roughly 45 minutes you simply go away while you wait for the test to be completed.
Your technician will not fail parts of your vehicle if they are still legally roadworthy, however they may issue you with an advisory notice to let you know of any that could do with being repaired in the near future.
Indeed, this is something that you ideally ought to look into getting fixed as soon as possible if you have a long drive planned as part of your holidays. Otherwise, the trip may put these parts under the last bit of strain that finally causes them to break. You don’t want these sorts of things making you cut your holidays short.
