Failed your HGV MOT? What happens next

A failure is a document, not a verdict

When a vehicle or trailer does not pass, you leave with a written refusal setting out every defect the examiner recorded and how each one is categorised. That document is not a complaint about your fleet. It is a work list, and it is the only version of events that matters from that point on.

Read it properly before anybody starts turning spanners. Defects are not all equal — some are the reason the vehicle failed, some are advisories that will bite next time, and the categorisation tells you which is which. Working through it item by item also stops the classic mistake of fixing the obvious thing, coming back, and failing on the item further down the page that nobody read.

Arguing on the lane achieves nothing — the examiner is DVSA’s, not ours. If an item genuinely does not make sense, ask us to look at it with the notice in hand.

There is a window, and it is not ours to set

A failed vehicle can be put right and presented again, and if it comes back promptly there is a reduced fee for doing so rather than paying for a full test a second time. That is the principle, and it is worth planning around: the cost of a fail is much lower for an operator who reacts quickly than for one who lets the vehicle sit in the yard.

What we will not do is print how long that window is. Retest timing is DVSA’s rule, the terms are not identical for every situation, and the guidance changes. A number typed onto a web page ages quietly and then costs somebody a full test fee they did not budget for. Check the current DVSA guidance, or ring us on 01527 870400 and we will tell you where you stand on the day you failed — which is the day it matters.

What a partial retest actually means

The other thing operators ask about is whether the whole test has to be repeated. In principle, a re-examination can be limited to the items that failed, together with anything that has to be looked at again because of the work done to put them right — replace a brake component and the braking performance is going to be measured again, whatever else is or is not re-checked.

Whether you get that limited examination rather than a full test depends on the circumstances: what failed, what was done about it, and how the vehicle is re-presented. Again, those conditions belong to DVSA and they are the sort of detail worth confirming for your specific failure rather than assuming from a general article. Ask when you book the re-presentation and you will know before you commit.

The retest fee follows the class

There is no such thing as “the retest fee”. It follows the class of whatever is being re-presented, so a goods vehicle, a trailer and a PSV are three different rates — and all three cost a good deal less than paying for a full test a second time.

On an artic that distinction is real money and it decides how you plan the return trip. If the unit passed and the trailer failed, it is the trailer that comes back at the trailer rate, and the unit stays on the yard earning. If the unit failed, you pay the vehicle rate and the trailer need not travel at all. Anyone quoting one flat number across every class has rounded it, and the rounding will not be in your favour. Ring 01527 870400 with the registration and you will have the figure for your class before anything sets off.

The fees are only part of the arithmetic, though, and usually the smaller part. What a failure actually costs is a vehicle out of service and a second journey.

Why the second journey is the expensive part

Consider what a fail looks like at a test lane with no workshop behind it. The defect is written down, the vehicle drives away, somebody rings round for a garage, the garage books it in when it can, the work is done, and then the vehicle travels back to be re-presented. That is two extra journeys, two lots of driver time, and a vehicle earning nothing across the whole of it — for a difference in test fee that would not cover the fuel either way.

Our fitters are in the same building as the lane. A defect found in the morning is diagnosed, quoted, authorised by you and put right while the vehicle is standing here, and it goes back on the lane from where it stands. We are an authorised service centre for WABCO, Knorr-Bremse and SAF and we do Haldex ABS and EBS work in house, which matters because braking and axle faults are the ones most likely to have stopped the test in the first place.

That is the part of a failure that never appears on a fee list, and it is the part that decides what the week costs you.

What to do before the vehicle leaves the site

Get the refusal notice photographed and into the hands of whoever authorises spend. Get the work quoted while the vehicle is still standing on the site it was tested at. Establish parts availability before you decide anything, because a part on back order is what turns a straightforward fail into a long one. Then agree when the vehicle is coming back, and confirm the retest fee for its class while you are there.

If your vehicle failed somewhere without a workshop and you need the work done properly and quickly, ring 01527 870400. Tell us what is on the notice and we will tell you what it takes to clear it.