Older Cars Editorial - July 2010

I dropped in to my local MOT station the other day, for a quick test on one of my old Porsches before a European road trip. It’s a village garage, with the owner also the MOT tester. He and his wife both have bad backs from years of pulling front wheels to check steering gear and the like, so I was delighted to see that he has installed a one-man testing rig, where the car drives onto the ramp and the front wheels are clamped to hydraulically-operated plates, which carry out all the contortions needed to check ball joints, track rods and other steering and suspension components.

As we put the old Porsche through the motions, my tester speculated that, with the recent changes in emissions measuring equipment and the Vehicle Inspectorate’s near insistence on these one-man testing ramps, the UK seemed to be moving towards a two-year MOT test regime – the standardisation of test procedures across the European Union. He’s put the question to the Inspectorate a number of times previously, and never had no for an answer.

Two-year testing is an interesting idea. On the face of it, it cuts testing in half and saves money for older car owners on car repairs. But it’s not all rosy in the garden.

Whereas testing in the UK is a snapshot of condition on the day of the MOT, the continental approach is to examine current condition AND expected deterioration over the following two years. If a particular area is of concern in terms of future wear and tear, the vehicle fails the test, repairs must be made.

My tester spends some time each year in Spain. He recounted how an ex-pat friend out there was driving around in a new car that came due for its first test. The Spanish tester spotted some light wear on the door panel  and decided that, in two years’ time, that wear could potentially have holed the panel, exposing a possible sharp metal edge beneath. As a result, the car failed the inspection.

Moving to a similar system in the UK would upset a few apple carts. While test procedure in the UK is prescriptive, professional opinion can differ between centres. Two-year testing with increased tester liability would certainly be detrimental to the UK’s older car population. Don’t tell me that car manufacturers and Government wouldn’t be excited by the prospect of more older cars being banished from the roads.

As an older car enthusiast, I’m not entirely anti two-year testing, but the whole thing is definitely a case of ‘watch this space’.