By law, every car driven on public roads must undergo an annual test of its fitness for road travel. This test is mandatory after the first three years from the point at which the car was sold.
The MOT test covers every safety-critical area of your car. In reality, it’s a lot of very small tests. To come through the other side of the MOT, your car will need to pass each one of them. You can often save money and time by booking your MOT online – but this isn’t the only saving to be made.
If you want the car to pass the first time, thereby limiting your costs and inconvenience, it’s worth performing a few simple checks yourself before you reach the garage.
Lights and Indicators: Ensure All Are Working Properly
For your car to be roadworthy, all of its lights will need to be fully functional. This means, where necessary, changing your headlights, indicators, brake lights, and reversing lights. Modern cars might be equipped with LED headlights, which might react automatically to oncoming traffic at night-time. These lights might be more expensive to replace – which means doing it yourself offers additional scope to save money.
Tyres and Tread Depth: Check for Legal Compliance
The tread on your tyres serves an important role. It’s there to channel water away from your wheels, and prevent your car from aquaplaning. In the UK, the legal minimum for tread depth is 1.6mm – which is around the thickness of the border around a twenty-pence piece.
It’s worth replacing your tyres well before they reach this legal minimum, however. Doing so will help you to cope with wet weather, while improving your fuel economy and stopping distance.
Brakes and Steering: Ensure Smooth, Responsive Operation
Without effective and reliable brakes and steering, your car will never be safe to drive. Cars that underperform here will tend to fail instantly. You can often prevent this by simply paying attention to the way that the vehicle handles, and by listening out for suspicious rattles, squeaks, and grinding sounds. If you sense a problem, get the car seen immediately.
Windscreen, Wipers, and Washer Fluid: Clear Visibility Matters
There are other parts of the test that aren’t quite as obviously important. If your windscreen is chipped or cracked, even just a little bit, it could be grounds for failure. Similarly, if your windscreen wipers aren’t working, or your fluids aren’t topped up adequately, your visibility might be compromised. This, too, is grounds for failure.
Remember that windscreen wipers and screenwash are designed to be periodically replaced. Make sure that you do so, and you won’t fail the test for these reasons!
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