Morris Minor Owners Club

DVSA have new trial to counter 'Ghost MOT' problem.... photographing the car on test.

We know ghost MOTs account for nearly 80% of all fraudulent MOTs, making it a clear area for us to tackle. Knowing if a vehicle is where it should be at the time of test should reduce the number of MOTs carried out when the vehicle isn’t present, or isn’t the same vehicle as the details being entered into MTS

This Blog is aimed at MOT Testers :
https://mattersoftesting.blog.gov.uk/ho ... n-the-mot/

Thank you for the post - an interesting read especially the comments.

philthehill wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2025 1:22 pm Thank you for the post - an interesting read especially the comments.

Yes, some very interesting feedback in the comments.

I noted a particular section of comments regarding the price of the MOT....

Ranging from saying the price of the test needs to rise to £75 - £100 to properly cover costs, through to those saying they know of places offering a £25 Test....

One tester of 40 yrs, says:

I personally know of a garage that was doing 30 mot’s a day, with one tester and one bay. DVSA were aware of it but “Did not have the time or resources to build a case”. Another has two testing stations, cars were often at one site and the test was “done” at the other.

Just goes to show that the question of 'Test or Not to Test' for Historic Vehicles is nothing compared to the 1,000s of other genuinely 'Iffy' cars out on the road.

My local garage sometimes does my Minors for a reduced fee, as "it involves less work" than for a modern car.
In fact three years ago they did my two as a BOGOF.

Photographing on test does nothing.

How many white transits are there out in the wild? And how difficult is it to fit different number plates for a photo? Afterall you only need to do it once and re-use it every year

Matt wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:21 am Photographing on test does nothing.

How many white transits are there out in the wild? And how difficult is it to fit different number plates for a photo? Afterall you only need to do it once and re-use it every year

Yes, it's a bit daft without other aspects being taken into account, like it being taken on a camera directly attached to the DVLA system.

I remember a few years ago, a local character asking me a lot of questions about my Moggy such as "Are they easy to MOT?" He then started to collect a few, always a bit worse for wear and needing serious work. The thing was, they were always the same colour and pre suffix registered. This was in the days before the Ebay lunacy, Anyway, he had one repaired presumably to MOT standard and drove around in it for a while. Soon afterwards, the other cars began disappearing until he only had the good one left. Spookily, the others never had number plates on when they went to heaven!

Not sure it will stop the iffy ones or not, mot tester can just pass it, but at least they are trying to stop dodgy cars getting bent mot's.
I remember they used to use cars of same weight just to write a mot for cars that they never even see that's scary