A customer's MOT has expired. What should you tell them?

Every garage gets this phone call. The MOT ran out last week, or last month, and the customer wants to know whether they can bring the car in. Half the time they have already driven it somewhere.

The answer is short, and most workshops give it slightly wrong. Worth getting right, because it is the difference between a customer who books today and one who leaves the car on the drive for another three weeks worrying about it.

Yes, if the test is booked. That is the whole exemption.

Once an MOT expires, the vehicle cannot be used on a public road. The exception that matters is this one: driving to a pre-arranged MOT test at an authorised test station is permitted.

Three conditions ride with it.

The appointment must actually exist. Not "I'm going to book one". A real booking, at a real station, at a real time. If they are stopped, they need to be able to show it, so tell them to keep the confirmation on their phone.

Directly there, by a reasonable route. No school run on the way, no stopping at the supermarket. The exemption covers the journey to the test, not a day of driving that happens to end at your ramp.

The car still has to be roadworthy. This is the one people miss, and it is the important one. The exemption excuses the missing certificate. It does not excuse the state of the vehicle.

There is a second, narrower exemption for driving to or from a garage for repairs to remedy an MOT failure. Same principle, same limits.

Tell them there is no grace period, because they think there is

A lot of drivers believe they get a couple of weeks after the expiry date. They do not. There is no grace period in UK law, and never has been.

The certificate expires on its expiry date. From that day, unless one of the exemptions applies, using it on a road is an offence. Worth saying plainly on the phone, because the belief is widespread and it is the reason cars sit uninsured and untested on driveways for a month.

The numbers, for when they ask

Up to £1,000 for no valid MOT. No penalty points for that on its own.

Up to £2,500 per defect if the vehicle is also found to be in a dangerous condition, and that can bring points and a disqualification with it.

That gap is the argument for booking the test rather than risking the drive, and it is also the argument for you recovering a car you have any doubt about rather than telling the owner to bring it in.

Insurance is where it actually gets expensive

The fine is not the real risk. Most policies require the vehicle to be roadworthy, and many reference a valid MOT directly.

The third-party cover required by law does not evaporate, so a person they hit is protected. But the insurer can decline or reduce the claim for their own car, and in some circumstances recover from them. A written-off car they still owe finance on, with no payout, is a far worse day than a £1,000 fine.

Say it once, without drama. "Your cover might not pay out while it is untested" moves more people than any fine does.

When you should tell them not to drive it at all

If the description on the phone includes any of these, book a recovery rather than an appointment:

• Brakes that feel wrong, a pedal going to the floor, or a grinding noise
• Tyres down to the wear bars, cords showing, or a slow puncture they have been topping up
• Steering that wanders or clunks
• Lights out at the front or rear
• It has been stood for months with no idea of its condition

The pre-booked test exemption is not a shield for a dangerous car. If it is unsafe, the drive to you is an offence with the bigger penalty attached, and you have invited them to commit it.

The bit most garages leave on the table

Here is the part worth sitting with.

The car's MOT has expired. It is now, legally, undriveable until it is tested. That customer must get an MOT, and soon, and the only open question is who does it.

That is the highest-intent moment in the entire relationship. Higher than a month before it is due, when it is still a thing they intend to get around to.

And it is almost universally the moment garages go quiet. Reminders, where they exist at all, run before the expiry date and stop on it. The fortnight afterwards, when the customer genuinely has no choice, is silence.

It is worth checking what your own list does. Most reminder setups, whether that is software, a spreadsheet or a diary, are built around the question "whose MOT is due soon". Almost none of them are built around "whose MOT has already gone", which is the list with the ready customers on it.

What to do about it, whatever system you use:

Run a list of every vehicle you have seen whose MOT date has passed in the last month. Not due soon. Passed.

Send them one message. Not a marketing email, a useful one: your MOT ran out on the 3rd, the car cannot legally be driven until it is tested, we can fit you in Thursday, and if it is not safe to drive we will collect it.

Then stop after about a month. Beyond that you are chasing somebody who has already gone somewhere else, and a reminder people learn to ignore is worse than no reminder at all.

It is the cheapest work in the business. The customer already knows you, the car is already in your records, and they need the thing you sell.

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Sources: MOT requirements and the pre-booked test exemption are set out in UK road traffic law and DVSA guidance; the £1,000 and £2,500 figures are the maximum court fines for no MOT and for a dangerous vehicle respectively. Insurance treatment varies by policy, so check individual wording.