To ask if your car normally passes it's MOT.

How very presumptuous of you.

I never had my old car serviced and it lived to 17 years old. It sailed through its MOTs too.

And my driving is fine thankyou 🙃

That's what it does NOW as it's "semi-retired". It had a previously much more active life. It's only the last couple of years it's done so little. When it was new it was doing probably averaging 10k per year as it was one of our main family cars, then we taught our son to learn to drive in it, so it got quite a bit of "abuse" from dodgy practice gear changes, steep hill start practices, etc. Then son took it to Sixth form and Uni for four years and heaven knows how good/bad he drove it. Now it's our local runabout/shopping car park car as it's small and easy to park and we're not obsessed about some moron opening their door onto it and causing dints and scratches. So it's certainly had "busy" times in it's long life and still never failed it's MOT. For the past few years it's been mostly parked up, it's not been "fully" serviced, the garage have done what they think it's needed as they're aware of it's mileage and lack of use, so they've done mostly visual checks and I think only changed the oil once whereas the official service schedule was to do it every two years, but garage suggested just every three years - the service schedule also said the spark plugs were due for replacement, but garage told us not to bother as they were fine, etc. They do a battery test every year which takes a few minutes to check it's not about to give up especially due to the cold winters if it's not used much, but it always comes back fine - we've only needed one replacement battery in 17 years which isn't bad at all! We've have 2 or 3 really cheap annual services that probably weren't necessary but gives us peace of mind.

One of our previous cars hit 195k miles and still had never failed an MOT. Regular servicing and driving properly really lengthens the lifespan and reduces the breakdown/repair costs in the long run.

Ha so basically, you re taking the same car back for its MOT, in pretty much the same condition it was in at the previous one only its now had a full service after just 1000miles..... and you're pleased it passed!!

i'd be pretty pissed off if it didn't.

Most people do 500 to 1000miles in a month

Do you mean diesel cars? because you are meant to use those for fairly regular long journeys, but petrol cars will be fine, the battery may need charging in the winter and tyres need replacing about every 5 or 6 years even if tread is hardly used but that's about all. I have a low milage Fiesta that does 1k - 2k a year, mainly local journeys and it's fine. We do try to give it a long run about once a month in the winter to keep the battery topped up though. Our other car is a diesel which does do about 12k-14k a year and also has passed it's MOTs.

@Sw1989

I can't believe the amount of posters on here saying they don't service their cars, that's just asking for expensive problems later down the line.

Amazes me too. But then again it may explain why people think the only way to have a "reliable" car is to always buy new on 3 year leases. No wonder they end up breaking down and having huge repair bills on older cars if they can't be arsed to have them serviced and look after them. They're probably the ones who drive badly too, i.e. bouncing up/down kerbs to park, heavy acceleration and braking, bouncing too fast over potholes and rough tracks, etc.

Depends how "modern" you mean. My 17 year old car does less than a thousand miles per year and can be sat stationery in the car park for several weeks at a time. Still in perfect running order and still never failed it's MOT. It's longest drive each year is probably the drive to the MOT garage which we use which is the other side of town. We drive it the long way round the town's by pass to warm it up and give it a good/fast run to help it through the emissions test!

Yes, so far. It's a 68 plate with low mileage. It's serviced regularly and is driven carefully. This year however I had to pay out a lot of money as the battery failed which caused a blown fuse to cut out the display screen (audio/cameras/sat nav). Took them three days of checking tons of wiring before they found the blown fuse. Frustratingly , when I took it in, I said "hopefully it's just a blown fuse" 😖

In the old days (70s, 80s and before) cars used to often fail because of rust, we used to have to have welding done on the sills a lot and I recall we had a VW Beetle which had to have a patch of metal welded into the floor pan as there was a hole in the bottom. Modern cars are much better made in that respect now so costly welding is rarely needed for MOT

So yes, it’s normal. I’m not sure why you think passing two years in a row is something exceptional.

Mine’s never failed, and it’s a Land Rover from 2010.

@ItTook9Years not that I need to explain myself... but I drove my partner's car which I'm insured on throughout my maternity leave because it's considerably bigger than mine and that's where we installed the baby's car seat and the dog's car seat

Never failed. 10 year old Audi A3 TFSI, had it 8 years. Only mechanical problem with it has been when the battery went flat during lockdown.

Mine passed today but with an advisory for 4 misting shocks absorbers too. It's only ever failed one a couple of years ago for a broken suspension spring. 2017 Séat Leon.

I can't believe the amount of posters on here saying they don't service their cars, that's just asking for expensive problems later down the line.

My car is 15 years old and failed once. I'd hit a pothole, knocked the tracking out on the tyres and one was being worn away on the inner wall. Easy fix. It rarely even has advisories as I have it serviced every year and check my pressures etc semi regularly.

I recon it depends. Mine is very old. 15 years. hasn't passed the last few years and needed extra stuff done.

Sounds like an Evo. My fun cars tend to be serviced every 2-3k miles at most. My thirstiest does single figure mpg.

My fun car has a 4500 mile service interval (and does 12mpg).

The only issue I really get is my tyres cracking before they're worn out tread wise

I try and do a decent length drive when I do drive it (1-2 times a week) rather than short runs
Never used to do such low mileage but WFH now, however public transport is so shit I can't be without a car

Mine does because I get it serviced and a sight check and get any repairs done first.

It's daft not to get your car serviced OP.

This. The cost of a basic service is buttons in the overall cost of car ownership. Not servicing it is great way to drastically shorten its life and reduce its value. The Americans are on the opposite end of the scale though, marketing has told them they need to change their oil every 3k miles 😂

Modern cars are not designed to be sat around doing very low mileage. It’s really bad for them, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it caused issues on MOTS.

I have a specialist car that’s 19 years old and immaculately maintained. It always passes the MOT with a few advisories. It’s a fun game to note which ones I’ve ignored and which don’t then appear on the next test cert.

It really is a very basic test and very reliant on how their tester approaches it as to what will be found.

I did have a car once whose brake pipes exploded when they did a brake test on a MOT. That was a surprise to everyone.

Mine has never passed! It’s only five years old and I’ve had it from two years old. Every year they seem to find something and it makes me very suspicious. It has a full service history and low mileage. It’s the worst car I’ve ever had when it comes to MOTs, in contrast my older bangers always passed. Maybe it’s just my turn now!

Most drivers I encounter have no idea how their car works (or which lane they should be in). It’s one of the reasons I do the majority of my driving at night, when they’re out of the way.

I mean, maternity leave is the perfect time to drive around with a defective tyre and risk a blow out.