MOT checking and servicing

H

hfp

Registered User
Messages
167
Hi, I'm hoping someone here might be familiar with the MOT carried out in Northern Ireland, as have tried googling and all answers appear to be for England which works slightly differently.

I'm putting my car through the MOT at the end of July, for previous tests I have just booked the car in for a full service costing about £120, and the car has passed fine. This year when booking the car into the garage, they asked me if I wanted to also book an MOT check which would cost an extra £55.

I asked what was covered in the extra checks they said they would check headlight alignment, something to do with the brakes (can't remember) and a visual inspection of the underside of the car. Maybe I'm naive, but should these not be checked as part of a normal service?
 
Thanks for the reply. I guess my query is more along the servicing line of things. I had always assumed that a full service would check anything required to pass an MOT as well as other general maintenance stuff (you can tell how much I know about cars!!), and that an MOT check was a more basic (and cheaper) check to make sure the car would pass the MOT, without being a full service. I object to paying for a full service for the car, when this does not even guarantee me to pass my MOT.

Would this be standard across all garages, or should I be finding myself a new one? Never had any problems with them in the past, and always been happy with price before now.
 
Looking at the way MOT works in NI as opposed to UK mainland seems more on the same lines as ROI.
In which case as the garage is not doing the MOT so could certainly offer the full MOT check as an additional product to a regular car service. I know that it seems to make sense to you and me that they should be one and the same but usually they are not. As far as I can tell the regular service (and a garage owner/person can confirm) is related to the operation of the engine only (might include emissions testing). All other checks, lights, brakes, tyres, etc. are considered as another system within the car in terms of maintenance.
Often people do the regular service and let the MOT(NI)/NCT point out the faults that need fixing rather than the garage do speculative work. In the UK mainland where garages do the test it's no benefit to the garage to offer a pre MOT other than we guarantee to do any work needed to ensure it will pass the test as they are doing it.
As for changing garages I suspect like everyone they are finding that something that the threw in as a service in the past just may not be economic anymore.
 
Last edited:
Woodie said:
All other checks, lights, brakes, tyres, etc. are considered as another system within the car in terms of maintenance.
Click to expand...

These should all be checked as part of a standard full service!

For examples of what should be included in a service, see what [broken link removed] and the [broken link removed] do as part of theirs.
Leo
 
Leo said:
These should all be checked as part of a standard full service!

For examples of what should be included in a service, see what [broken link removed] and the [broken link removed] do as part of theirs.
Leo
Click to expand...
You are absolutely right Leo - Thx. I guess that was the point, even if not so obvious, what many garages call a "standard service" is not what many car owners think it is.
 
Thanks for the replies. Think the brake check they do for the extra MOT service is a test of the efficiency of the brakes, rather than just a visual inspection, so that seems to differ from the normal service. Its £30 to go through a new MOT if the car fails vs £55 for the extra checks, so think I'll just chance it!! Haven't failed yet in 4 previous tests, so fingers crossed!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top