Is it worth repairing my car to get it through the MOT?

People compare the repair bill with the car's sale value and conclude it is not worth fixing. That is the wrong comparison, because you are not choosing between the repair and the money — you are choosing between the repair and buying another car, which has its own purchase price, its own transfer costs and its own unknown condition. On an otherwise sound car the repair frequently wins even when it exceeds the resale value.

Safety

Step by step

1. Get the failure list in writing and separate it into three piles.Dangerous, major, and advisory. Dangerous and major have to be fixed to pass and to drive legally. Advisories do not, but they tell you what is coming, and that matters for the decision.
2. Price the failures individually, and get a second quote on the large ones.A test station is not obliged to do the repair and you are free to take it elsewhere. Prices on the bigger items — corrosion, suspension, emissions work — vary widely between garages.
3. Read the advisories as a forecast.Advisories are the next twelve months of bills. A pass secured cheaply, with a long list of advisories underneath, is a car that has not stopped costing money.
4. Cost the replacement properly, not just its price.Purchase, any warranty, insurance change, road tax, immediate servicing, and a realistic allowance for the faults a used car arrives with. Add the time and hassle of finding one.
5. Compare cost per remaining year on both sides.Repair cost plus expected running costs over the years the car has left, against the replacement's total cost over the same period. Do it with your own mileage and your own insurance figures.
6. Check the failures against the car's real weak points.Structural corrosion is usually terminal on an older car because it recurs and is expensive to do properly. Brakes, tyres, bulbs, wipers, suspension bushes and emissions faults are ordinary consumable work and rarely a reason to give up on a car.
7. Decide, and if you are scrapping it, do it properly.Use an authorised treatment facility, get a certificate of destruction, and notify DVLA. Never let an unlicensed dealer take it away with the paperwork left open.

Tips

• If the same component has failed repeatedly, that is a pattern rather than an event, and it argues for replacement more strongly than a single expensive bill.
• A car you know is a known quantity. A replacement at a similar price is an unknown one, and the first year of an unknown car often includes work the seller was aware of.
• Where the repair is worth doing but the money is not there this month, ask the garage what has to be done for the pass and what can wait — that is a legitimate question and most will answer it honestly.

Common mistakes

• Comparing the repair bill with the car's sale value — You are not being offered the sale value as an alternative. The alternative is another car with its own costs, and that is the only comparison that answers the question.
• Fixing a car with serious structural corrosion — It is expensive to do properly, it tends to reappear elsewhere, and it is one of the few failures that genuinely means the end of an economic repair.

Questions people ask