When you drive your car you both hope and expect it to remain reliable and safe. Each year your car will require an MOT—Ministry of Transport—test that determines its road worthiness and shows you the results of all the tests conducted on your vehicle. The MOT test originally covered simple things such as lights, steering, brakes, electrics and other technical areas of the car. However, over the years, car have both become more complex and there are also emission rules associated with pollution. Therefore, the MOT test has not only become more stringent but also more complex.
The constantly expanding list of items to check on the MOT test now includes, emissions tests for the amount of exhaust that your car emits, tire checks—to check for tread levels, braking systems—including anti-locking brakes and horns. Other issues that must also be covered are the condition of the body work, including any broken elements, such as cracked bumper, a cracked or broken windscreen or anything that is hanging loose on the vehicle that should not be hanging loose. The exhaust is also a vital part of the test, not just from the emissions point of view, but also from the point of view of noise. A broken, eroded or rusty muffler on your exhaust will make a loud and nasty noise, which is also an MOT test failure.
Safety is Vital
The Windscreen is vital and the integrity of the windscreen can also determine a pass or fail. If you have a small enough within your line of sight, but it measures no more than 10mm, you are ok. However, a crack more than 40mm anywhere on the windscreen is an automatic fail. There are varying different types of crack or windscreen damage, one of which is known as the Bullseye or the spider web. The Bullseye is a characteristic of most typical cracks, whereby a small stone hits the screen and creates a mark that looks similar to a small bullet mark. Other types of crack or split are the ‘star’ the ‘batwing’ or the ‘combination’ and all of those have different causes and different patterns of crack. Remember, though, that windscreens in Gloucester will undergo the exact same tests as windscreens in any other city in the country.
