More Challenges Face Those Driving Used Cars
Tuesday, 4. December 2018
In May this year, we saw some major changes to the MOT test, the biggest of all was with regard to emissions. If the tester saw any smoke emitting from the exhaust he was obliged to fail the car. Something that most people felt uncomfortable with as it’s a tad arbitrary relying on the discretion of the tester.
As a result, according to the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), MOT failures amongst diesel cars has increased by 4 fold between May and November 2018. In total 238,871 diesel cars failed their MOT test compared to 58,004 during the same period in 2017. I have to say diesels have always struggled to get through the emissions section of the MOT test but the failure rate is now 17%, up by 10% over the previous testing regime.
Having said that the diesels weren’t alone as there was also an increase in petrol cars failing the new emissions test, up from 292,468 in 2017 to 505,721 this year. A total of 750,000 failed the emissions tests between May and November, up from 350,000 over the same period last year.
The smoke test appears to be the biggest reason for failure. Any diesel car fitted with a particulate filter (DPF) must now pass the visual smoke test. If it emits smoke from the exhaust of any colour it will fail. In the case of petrol engines if the exhaust emits either dense blue smoke or clearly visible black smoke whilst idling for more than 5 seconds – again that’s a fail.
Vans are even worse when it comes to failing. The DVSA pointed out that as a result of the new emissions tests the failures have rocketed from 3,585 in 2017 to 19,648 this year. That’s a rise of 448%. Whilst the number of emission test failures have increased the overall failures have remained pretty much the same.
Total tests were 8.2 million petrol and 6.6 million diesel. The one question that hasn’t been answered was how many cars had to be scrapped because they couldn’t get the emissions clean. A frightening thought if you’re driving a used car. A pretty good reason to stop buying used cars and go for new cars. By Graham Hill
