Whats going on with MOT Availability at the moment?

[A.M.Q.R.]

As bishop Brennan would say, now this is a new one.......

 

[Smick]

No…it doesn’t work like that with DD,
They Don’t check you’re MOT’d every month - just when it gets to the end of the year from when you set up the DD- if you check you’re tax status after setting up a DD it will show a year.

Yep this is the way it works. If your MOT and tax renewal are roughly in sync ul get a red tax letter on month 12. Otherwise ul never get a letter.

 

[weeloaney]

Yep this is the way it works. If your MOT and tax renewal are roughly in sync ul get a red tax letter on month 12. Otherwise ul never get a letter.

DD is great, no letter every year telling me how ridiculous the cost of the Mazdas tax is

Until this year when I’d ran out of mot and had to redo it

 

[Coog]

Sat for half an hour refreshing and clicking, refreshing and clicking and eventually got a date and location that kind of worked. A few came up in the interim and I was quick to click through but suspect the thing is full of bots now for these websites charging £4 to find you a slot because they were gone instantly.

They really need to do something about it. It’s a complete shambles.

 

['96dc2]

Just scrap the whole system and forget mot’s

 

[seanmooney]

Here we go..

I hate having to give them the do’s and don’t for the vx220.

Always afraid they will put one of this pads through a sill

 

[svensktoppen]

I'm the same with the Lotus...

"Don't try to lift it"

"Don't pull on the windscreen when getting in/out"

Etc. They're usually good about it, and most of them have seen it all before. They usually get a more "compact" chap/chapette over to drive her through, lol. But always a worry every time

 

[BobSpounge]

Sat for half an hour refreshing and clicking, refreshing and clicking and eventually got a date and location that kind of worked. A few came up in the interim and I was quick to click through but suspect the thing is full of bots now for these websites charging £4 to find you a slot because they were gone instantly.

They really need to do something about it. It’s a complete shambles.

Our non working executive strikes again. At least Mallon took action the last time when there was no mot testing due to Covid.

I'm lucky enough that the mot expiry and tax expiry dates on our cars are months apart so I'll just book the first test available at my local centre and drive away.

I'm not going out of my way to head to another centre miles away and I'm not sitting refreshing pages on the website looking for cancellations either. I did before but I'm not doing it again because this is part of the problem, the normal Joe's are prepared to go out of their way to put a sticking plaster on a system that doesn't work so nothing will change. If every one of them kicked up a stink instead then something might actually get done about it.

 

[alexf557]

great load of options this morning

 

[svensktoppen]

15 minute queue to even get to the rebooking page It's not getting better

 

[svensktoppen]

I'm not going out of my way to head to another centre miles away and I'm not sitting refreshing pages on the website looking for cancellations either. I did before but I'm not doing it again because this is part of the problem, the normal Joe's are prepared to go out of their way to put a sticking plaster on a system that doesn't work so nothing will change. If every one of them kicked up a stink instead then something might actually get done about it.

Only problem with that is if you ever drive outside of NI...

But yes, the system is xxxx-ed

 

['96dc2]

How do car dealers get dates so easily, do they have a different way of booking?

 

[Coog]

Our non working executive strikes again. At least Mallon took action the last time when there was no mot testing due to Covid.

I'm lucky enough that the mot expiry and tax expiry dates on our cars are months apart so I'll just book the first test available at my local centre and drive away.

I'm not going out of my way to head to another centre miles away and I'm not sitting refreshing pages on the website looking for cancellations either. I did before but I'm not doing it again because this is part of the problem, the normal Joe's are prepared to go out of their way to put a sticking plaster on a system that doesn't work so nothing will change. If every one of them kicked up a stink instead then something might actually get done about it.

I was going to do the same until I rang the insurance company to check it was OK. They were very non committal about what would happen - could / should / might and also mentioned a lack of MOT 'could' impact the valuation of the car. Figured at that stage that instead of worrying about it I'd just go ahead and try to sort it out. My test was up in August and the nearest date I could get was December.

It's totally ridiculous. I could understand it if there were images of cars queued out onto Boucher road trying to get into Balmoral test centre, but they're not. I've been there and the place has been pretty quiet and other centres quieter than that. They must have severe staff shortages that aren't being addressed.

 

[svensktoppen]

How do car dealers get dates so easily, do they have a different way of booking?

Most likely. Same as new registrations - car dealers can get that done straight away, us mortal have to wait 6-8 weeks for DVA to do their thing.

Probably fair enough I suppose.

 

['96dc2]

Most likely. Same as new registrations - car dealers can get that done straight away, us mortal have to wait 6-8 weeks for DVA to do their thing.

Probably fair enough I suppose.

Maybe worth getting friendly with one.

 

[eamon343]

I was going to do the same until I rang the insurance company to check it was OK. They were very non committal about what would happen - could / should / might and also mentioned a lack of MOT 'could' impact the valuation of the car. Figured at that stage that instead of worrying about it I'd just go ahead and try to sort it out. My test was up in August and the nearest date I could get was December.

It's totally ridiculous. I could understand it if there were images of cars queued out onto Boucher road trying to get into Balmoral test centre, but they're not. I've been there and the place has been pretty quiet and other centres quieter than that. They must have severe staff shortages that aren't being addressed.

Ive been to malusk and boucher twice over the past month, all three times theres been 1 car infront of me and the staff haven't been in a great rush.

And maybe its only because i was standing outside waiting, but i thought the tests took longer than normal to do.

I think its a good system we have here, but there is something lacking somewhere. You'd expect 2 or 3 cars queued up in each lane all day every day, a handful of guys on each lane and cars going in and out every few mins

 

[alexf557]

any time i'm up at newry test centre there's an empty lane and a gang of lads standing around doing next to nothing while 2 or 3 cars are processed in the other lanes

 

[natogreen16v]

I had a retest at 6pm in Lisburn last week. Stayed on at work for a while and headed to the test centre allowing for traffic. No traffic meant I was there at 5:20. No other cars there at all and I sat until 5:50 to be called. As I drove out there were maybe 5 cars queued.

Do they close 5-6 for dinner?

 

[Robert]

Has anyone used one of these websites for automatically booking a cancellation?

 

[Coog]

Has anyone used one of these websites for automatically booking a cancellation?

My dad did and it worked fine. You can’t be too specific though or it won’t find a date. You also need to be careful it doesn’t end up getting you a slot for 6pm tonight or 9am tomorrow sort of thing, which is possible if it’s running in the background and you had picked a particular week or fortnight you want the car tested 3 weeks previous.

 

[svensktoppen]

Has anyone used one of these websites for automatically booking a cancellation?

I just tried one for the craic. There were only two that came up when searching, and one says it's temporarily offline.

Ten minutes refreshing by myself had me a spot in the right week, but 8:45 in Newbuildings. Which isn't so handy from Belfast. Anything that popped up closer was gone before I was able to book it.

So have left the bot active, but looking at closer centres only. Will see how it goes.

 

[MarkM]

My van’s 1st psv is due in September, they’ve given me 3 choices this year, Omagh, Enniskillen or Coleraine, earliest Iis 14th December wtaf?! I’ve a ****ing business to run you lazy arseholes!

 

[gary1365]

Omaha

 

[Turks]

The wife’s car runs out on 31st of this month had a date booked for Monday. The car has thrown up a fault now so it’s with the mechanic and had to change Monday date and now it’s October before it can be motd. I’ll just wait until it’s fixed then do the refreshing thing.

 

[A.M.Q.R.]

It's being slowly drove into the ground purposely I believe.

Was on the phone there to them about being charged twice for a test and the looper I was speaking to must be smoking some good stuff. Started to put on a automated voice about charging errors, then I asked him did you press a button to play that or was it you.

Then asked did I like it? Went south after that when I asked him why he couldn't just answer the question ******* levelly and with a bit of manners.

It may have been 16:20 and a Monday but flip me for someone who works for a government agency thats a disgrace. If he worked in most private sector call adviser roles he be out on his ear.

Will never happen but sooner it's done by private garages like GB the better.