Currently have a second car* that isn’t really worth selling (considering how much I’d get for it as well as how much I’ve blinkin’ well spent on maintaining it!) so am considering taking it off the road.

Is it as simple as all that? Got 2 or 3 months left on the road tax, got somewhere to keep it off road – is there anything I’m forgetting?

In addition if or when it IS off the road will turning it over for 10 mins (?!) every couple of weeks stop it from turning into one solid lump of seized metal?

TIA, as always!

*which was once needed for Mrs M’s work but not now although potentially could be in the future

SORN is just as you describe. You fill in a form which says “I’m not using my car, please stop sending me passive-agressive letters and prosecute me if you see me driving. Love and kisses, Munkster.” (I may be paraphrasing slightly)

just tick the box and that’s it. you get quite a bit for them at the scrappy these days BTW. there was something on the telly about scrap dealers buying cars at auction for scrap.

Thanks guys, just thought, does it still need to be insured even if off the road? I presume then if it were to get nicked it would just stay nicked?

About to do the same with my eldests car when the “road” tax runs out – she’s in the Kalahari for the next 12months. I assume we’ll have to insure it to some degree………………??

If the car’s SORN’d you don’t need insurance as it’s off the road. Put a wheel clamp lock or such like on it to make it unmovable. But as said, if it goes it goes.

Don’t forget to send the tax disc back, you’ll get a refund.

If you do SORN it get it back on the road before the tax and MOT run out.

oooo and don’t leave the handbrake on just leave it in gear.

This is coming from someone who needs to get the car back on the road after 2 years of sorn, cant get it taxed cant get it insured and the handbrake is seized on!!!

should of sold it when it was running 🙁

eta. if you can keep a battery charger on trickle charge it will help, I started mine every week and drove it up and down my private road but it still died eventually. It needs a proper run to maintain everything really.

Insurance, ask a broker about it, there are policies for SORN cars, but if its not worth selling then presumably it’s not worth insureing?

You can do it online now, takes 10 minutes max, and you dont have to end it, just apply for a new tax disk when you want one.

…SORN it get it back on the road before the tax and insurance run out

Eh? Isn’t that missing the point? SORNing is stating that the vehicle is going to be kept off road and therefore does not require taxing or insuring, by law. And why on earth cant you reinsure it? Just takes a credit card, surely?

oooo and don’t leave the handbrake on just leave it in gear.

I hear ya brother; this same car has already fallen foul of that whilst sitting doing nothing – in its most recent MOT (in May) I had to have the handbrake stripped/cleaned etc because it was sticking like the proverbial…

Thanks all for input, gives me a good picture of what to do/expect.

Eh? Isn’t that missing the point? SORNing is stating that the vehicle is going to be kept off road and therefore does not require taxing or insuring, by law. And why on earth cant you reinsure it? Just takes a credit card, surely?

Because your Insurance is not valid without an MOT. If the MOT runs out you cannot get valid insurance (it’ll come up as uninsured and non-MOT’d on police ANPR cameras and you’ll get properly done in)

If the MOT runs out you have to get it transported to the garage it’s being tested at. And I doubt that’ll be cheap…

If the MOT runs out you have to get it transported to the garage it’s being tested at.

I thought that if you’d got a pre-booked MOT test you are allowed to drive it to that specific garage for the booked test without an MOT…

If the MOT runs out you have to get it transported to the garage it’s being tested at. And I doubt that’ll be cheap…

you’re ok driving it to MOT center if you have an appointment.

Yup, I did this when I went travelling. Got a refund for the months left on my tax disc. Remember to pump the tyres up hard or you’ll get flat spots – about 45psi should do it. Trickle charge your battery if you’re leaving it for months, or you’ll wreck it. Petrol can go off if left long enough, so run your tank fairly empty and top up with a couple of jerry cans of fresh stuff when you come to use it again. And as already mentioned, you must leave the handbrake off.

I kept mine insured for 3rd party fire & theft.

Your insurance is valid without an MOT, and you can drive an untaxed vehicle on the road, so long as it is to a prebooked MOT appointment. I had the misfortune to test this out a couple of years ago, when I was involved in a fairly significant RTC Whilst en route to an MOT station in an untaxed vehicle without an MOT. insurance payed out, police were happy.

Because your Insurance is not valid without an MOT. If the MOT runs out you cannot get valid insurance

Are you sure about that?

You require insurance to get an MOT (you have to produce the certificate). You don’t require an MOT to get insurance, otherwise it’d be Catch-22.

You may be right that the insurance is invalidated without a valid MOT (perhaps this is policy-dependent?) but that won’t prevent you from being able to take out a policy in the first place.

I thought you could drive it to and from an MOT testing station – that was certainly what I did with the wife’s car a couple of months ago after it had been SORN’ed for 9 months. I renewed the insurance before I went, and bought new tax online the day after the MOT once the garage had processed their paperwork.

+1 on the handbrake, and it’s worth disconnecting the battery as well. I let mine run completely flat, and had to buy a new one at a cost of nearly £90!

if you have them put the car up on stands (if not as above over inflate the tyres) if in a garage crack the window open a bit, disconnect the battery.

if it is a shed don’t bother with the next bit..

if decent then do and oil & filter and coolant exchange before mothballing

yup, MrBudget is incorect.

I’ve driven my Midget to it’s MOT untaxed and untested running on 3 cylinders with no handbrake!

if decent then do and oil & filter and coolant exchange before mothballing

Do this, remove spark plugs and dribble some oil (10-15cc) though the holes and spin the engine, stops the bores rusting up. Refit the plugs obviously!

Then when it comes to re-use it again, fresh oil and filter again, and spin the engine with the spark plugs disconected to prime the oil pump and get oil up where it should be.

Don’t forget to renew the sorn after 12 months if needed, they don’t send you a reminder and you’ll get an £80 fine if you don’t do it as I found out!

As above people have said – you can insure the car and then drive to a booked mot and then drive home. You can then pop down to the post office or DVLA (on your bike, bus or another car) to get tax or do it online. We normally just do it online when we get back from the MOT station and then leave a note in the window with the reference number for the tax payment. You get a few days grace for the tax to ARRIVE but no leeway for a car with expired tax.

You must book it into an mot and you must tell them it is SORN so they don’t park it on the road. A garage did that with a car of mine (even though I told them when i booked it in) and it got clamped and I got an £80 release charge and narrowly avoided a big fine – the garage said I should have reminded them! What kind of MOT inspector checks the windscreen and doesnt notice the lack of tax disc?

I have done this a few times. The law says a car must either be taxed or insure or SORNed. If SORNed it must be on private property and doesnt need insurance (your loss if anything happens).

Similar if you buy a Cat C write off:
Buy the car
get it delivered and keep it off the road
fix it
insure it
Book in for MOT – drive to MOT and straight back.
Book for a VIC test – drive to VIC test and straight back.
Then you can tax it (at a DVLA office in this case).

If you buy or sell a SORN car the new owner has to re-apply for the SORN status as changing owner voids it. Many people fall foul of this. IIRC this doesnt apply to written off cars as they are not SORNedbut have some other status.

and yes, SORN only lasts for 12 months.

You can take out “laid up” insurance policies to cover SORNed cars if they’re worth it – very cheap, for fire and theft only.

That said, unless you’re pretty sure you’re likely to use it again, or it’s something you love, I’d suggest just getting rid now – the chances are you’ll end up doing that eventually anyway without ever getting it back on the road.

I’ve found with SORNed cars that once they’re off the road, sitting there looking an eyesore with everything slowly deteriorating through lack of use, with no tax, test or insurance, they become such a pain to get on the road again, and you adapt to life without it such that you never bother putting it back into action, and end up calling a scrappy to come and crane it away.

If you’re not really ready to get rid then it’s fine obviously, but you might be surprised how worthless a car quickly looks when it’s not in use. A car, after all, is a collection of legal documents and agreements. The metal in front of you, when not accompanied by it’s relevant papers, is just a useless tonne and a half of slowly rotting, irrelevant metal filling up your driveway.

I’ve been there twice, family and friends have done it also. Every time the vehicle in question was in the end either craned away or sold for a few notes on eBay after becoming an annoyance.

Don’t forget to renew the sorn after 12 months if needed, they don’t send you a reminder and you’ll get an £80 fine if you don’t do it as I found out!

i got a reminder.

What jackthedog said.

Sell it while it is running and has tax and MOT.

you’re ok driving it to MOT center if you have an appointment.

But……if it’s been SORN, and had no insurance and tax for some time, then the car still needs to be taxed and insured even if you’re driving it to get an MOT, right?

So how do you get Tax without having a valid MOT cert? You must have to have it towed to get an MOT (strickly speaking) before you can do all the other stuff to get it legal.

Just guessing of course.

Just guessing of course.

Therein lies the problem old chap! From the DVLA via a quick google search:

Driving an untaxed vehicle to an MOT test
You can drive your vehicle to and from a pre-arranged test at an MOT test station as long as you have adequate insurance cover in place for the use of that vehicle.
This is also for vehicles being driven to and from a pre-arranged test at a Vehicle Inspection Check (VIC) test station, an approved weight testing station and reduced pollution test.

Some insurers do insist on a valid MOT certificate before insuring, so that causes a lot of confusion.