My MOT runs out soon and I’m in France, advice?

I’m in France for the season and I left in a bit of a hurry. My MOT runs out while over here, is there anything I could do save driving home the 1000 miles and back again to sort it?

I know it’s proper stupid, but I’ll hopefully learn.

Cheers

you only need an MOT in the UK so do it when you get back 🙂

although it may invalidate your insurance

Although your insurance company could try and refuse a claim on the basis that your car isn’t road legal. Plus you have the risk of getting home and driving in the uk without (however briefly) which with all the ANPR cameras around now isn’t ideal.

Do you feel lucky?

I did the same, I’d forgotten to MOT our Kia and my wife took it to France for the summer and the tax ran out at the end of our stay too.

We came back I booked it into the MOT station with an appointment so I could legally drive it there and that was all I could do. You could get a Controle Technique on the car so its road legal for the roads of France, the only thing I can think of would be if they’ll accept headlight beam deflectors on a temporary basis?

That’s the problem, my tax runs out on 30th June so a plan I’m considering would be to drive home (2nd July) driving to the MOT centre. Apart from that I’m out here until mid September. Definitely not worth the risk of driving the 300 miles through England with all those cameras.

I’m trying to see if there’s any garages in France that can do British MOTs?

Hi PePPer, that sounds interesting, do you think that’d be ok if I booked it for my return in September?

It wasn’t a problem for me, we parked up in a town on the way back on a single yellow whilst my wife popped into a shop and then I saw a traffic warden approaching so I pulled forward then realised I had jsut driven through a no entry sign to compound my no tax no mot as well!

I got away with it (belgian chocolates are great for tempting traffic wardens)

You can always book it into an MOT centre at the port, get it MOT’d get it taxed then turn straight round if you want to be all legal.

You can only use the pre booked MOT at a local station though. i don’t think you’d get away with booking it 300miles from dover! Plus that means you can drive it once and that’s it to get there.

I wouldn’t of thought your insurance co would care if it had a french mot or not, I’d guess english or bust for them. The french test would probably fail on lights, maybe speedo and some others too. Think how an MOT tester would respond to a french car!

Just had a french car MOT’d here, with no problems at all, I just taped the headlight beams over and all was fine!

Really! That’s surprising. Does it have an MPH speedo fitted? Rear fog light on the right hand side etc? If not it shouldn’t have passed from what I know.

I would be surprised if there’s nothing that can be done. Take it you’ve tried the DVLA website etc?

Yup and Yup,

where are you re-entering the uk, on a weekday ? maybe you could book it into Kwik-Fit in that town ? off the boat / train – MOT ?
can your breakdown service offer some advice ?

You could get a Controle Technique on the car so its road legal for the roads of France, the only thing I can think of would be if they’ll accept headlight beam deflectors on a temporary basis?

They don’t, IIRC. I had to buy new headlights to pass the CT. Anyway, a CT has no relevance to a UK registered car.

Don’t do what the pikeys do and roll on someone elses plates. I’d book a test near the port preferably at a centre that doesnt do repairs so has less incentive to fail it.