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

[girlfriend44]

Car passed Mot today, and did last year too. I'm thankful.
Is this normal?

@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.

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.

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

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.

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 🙃

In 17 years, your car never had an oil and air filter change? or do you mean a garage service?

Even if you did just 5k a year, thats 85000 miles....

Most car oil change intervals on an older car will be yearly/6000 to 10000 miles.

I had it for 12 years and in that time, it never had a service.

Oil after 12 years will be absolutely manky though
I don't service mine as often as some but 12 years is asking for issues, it'll be like sludge

My vehicle is 34 years old. Passes MOT nine times out of ten- probably because there's not much to go wrong on it as it's so old!

Manky enough that it still continued going though.

@Beepbeepoutoftheway yes but you were lucky! Many cars wouldn't have and it could have ended up needing a whole new engine
For the sake of paying for an oil and filter change

Passes most of the time. It's sailed through the last 3 MOTS with no advisories. Not bad for a car that's getting on a bit.

I get it serviced every other year.

@Beepbeepoutoftheway so in 12 years your car was not serviced and passed every mot, so it never had tyres? Brakes? Other general wear and tear? Tyres over 8 years old need changing regardless of wear.

Unless it never went further than the end of the road you're talking nonsense! The oil filter alone will have rusted to dust in that time without a change.

Yes never had a failure and 2 advisories in 10 years

We also service it every year. Basic oil and filter one year. Major sevice, all filters. Gear box oil change and whatnot, the following and so forth.

Yes this.
We've had this before with customers

In 17 years, I have failed MOT only once. 10 of those years I have owned two cars. So yes, fairly normal.

Cars can still be OK without services etc.....
Last two cars never had them and were fine.
Why pay out more money unless you have too.

Because you have to. Your car manual specifies how often your car should be serviced. If you have a new car and don't get it serviced, it completely invalidates your warranty. Even if you don't drive your car a lot (mine does fewer than 4k miles a year) you should still do full service annually or at the very least top up fluids, change oil, power steering fluid intermittently.

You quite simply do not "have to" at all. I've never had a new car, so never had a warranty to invalidate (a total scam anyway!) as they don't transfer to new owners.

But even if you do have a new car, you still don't "have to" get your car serviced.

Weird.

I've never had a lease car nor bought new. My car is nine years old, over 100k and has never broken down. My last car did 220k miles, never broke down, never didn't start.

I'm not sure who is getting these "huge repair bills" but it's not me. I did just pay £600 for new brakes and discs, but they are consumable items so need replacing now and then. Not a "repair bill" as such.

I've not noticed myself bouncing up and down or over kerbs. I'm not sure how that follows at all. As I don't get my car serviced surely I'd drive more carefully if anything?

If it's new then no you don't have to get the car serviced but it will invalidate the manufacturers warranty
It would be really really stupid not to service a new car while it's still under that
(I work for a dealership so deal with this stuff daily)

As an example that has happened, you buy a brand new car and miss the first service. Engine goes at 18 months old. You've invalidated the warranty so now facing a 15k repair bill
Or you had the service and it's all covered

And you work for a dealership you say........ 🤔

@Negroany yes? The car doesn't have to be serviced at the dealership, you can take it anywhere
It's no issue to me where you get it serviced or whether you do or not, but explaining to customers that no the warranty isn't valid and that engine management light isn't covered because they didn't have any service done on it isn't a fun time

We fix faults under warranty day in and day out, thousands of pounds worth

My car will be 13 years old this year. Previous owner was an older gent who had it from new.

I've owned it around ten years. I've had a friend give it a service and MOT almost every year. The service is nothing too expensive. Nowhere near what the main dealer charges.

The one year I did take it elsewhere for an MOT it was the main dealer and it failed due to the height of the headlight beam. As this is adjusted from a dial on the dashboard they set the correct height and retested without me knowing it had failed until it picked it up. The only fail it's ever had.

They put the tyres on advisory too but having measured tread depth myself I knew they were fine. They were just looking for an upsell. Makes me glad I can trust my friend.