Garages urged to stop discounting MOTs in bid to boost lockdown recovery

[Mike Ruff, GW editor]

The Independent Garage Association (IGA) is campaigning against the practice of discounting MOTs to help garages recuperate costs from the loss of rev
[See the full post at: Garages urged to stop discounting MOTs in bid to boost lockdown recovery]

[sue]

Yes we could charge full price but we have no MOT’s to carry out to charge full price

[Derek Smith]

The big national companies, the kwik fits and halfords etc are never going to do this so we will still have to compete.
The only way it will work is if the government legislate against discounting and they are never going to do that in a free market economy.

[mr david willcocks]

about time ALL garages need to stand together and make up for the losses the 6 month extension has cost us all !! i myself have lost £150,000

[Gary thompson]

It would be fantastic if all mot stations charged the full mot fee,. It is impossible to have a discounted and profitable mot station.. The mot fee has not gone up in years,,and more Costs have been put on mot stations,, A full price fair mot is what people want…

[Farid mohammed]

i agree, should be fixed price of £54.85

[Richard Lowman]

I totally agree with this, I have been saying this for years that it should be the law.

[george roberts]

I agree with this all garages should charge the fees as set out by dsva and any garage who doe’s not should be removed from garage associations, I started my mot business in 2003 due to the fact that other local mot garages were using the mot scheme to print money by ripping the public off as I witnessed first hand. We offer a fair mot test but due to the fact dsva allow an excessive amount of mot testing facilities in one area we are still only achieving £40.00 per mot as when we first started due to price-cutting whilst labour rates and utilities have almost doubled.

[Adam Knight]

That’s quite short sighted by the IGA the first thing majority of garages will do is discount their services to attract more work. Really the message should be around the false economy of heavily discounted MOT test and how they just attract vehicles of poor condition and as we all know they have a negative impact on testing times and also bottle neck the testing station with vehicles with Major defects.
The sweet spot seams to be around £45 a test with Garages the offering more support to their customers like collections and delivery getting more of the work.

[Andy Williams]

About time too!! With the amount of investment needed to run an MOT bay £54 should be the minimum we charge for a class 4, although it will only work if it can be policed and penalties applied for discounting. Maybe people caught discounting would have to pay more for their test slots?

[JOHN HEWETT]

YES THE IDEA IS GREAT , BUT UNLESS THE DVSA FIXES A PRICE TO CHARGE AS A SET LEVEL , THERE WILL ALWAYS BE GARAGES CUTTING THE COST, THE DVSA NEEDS TO SET A PRICE AND FIX IT , WITH NO DISCOUNTS

[David Tomsett]

Great idea but it will only work if “every business” complies. Sadly the fast fit chains will not comply as they use the discount to lure customer into expensive repairs.

[L r Craven]

Garages are there own worst enemy. The greedy few after the easy pickings. The discount guy s deserve to go bust
You all lose discounting

[STEVE HARDING]

Totally agree the discount culture needs to stop and most small independents such as ourselves will need every drop of revenue going forward. It will be the big chains that are the likely fly’s in the ointment.
Keep well all.

[John]

How’s about increasing the mot cost, it’s been years since the last increase!

[steve]

we cant even stop part worn old and unsafe tyres in the uk . so how are we going to stop the price of mots dropping the whole trade is a mess and need to be regulated

[Rob Scriven]

I am a partner of a busy independence RAC Approved garage in Bedfordshire and we Rigidly stick to the £54.85 M.o.T fee for all retail customers. My concern if this was ever made mandatory the big players, Fast fits and even maybe Costco who already have tyre fitting centres may offer M.o.T’s with shopping discount vouchers etc to out price the independent garage sector.
Rob Scriven
B S Motors

[ian marshall]

This would be great news about time .

[Les Howard]

It’s a good idea as long as everyone does it in the area it should be compulsory for every one.

[Gary]

It will make no difference to sector recovering instead of asking readers, poll DVSA to make them set a level price for everyone and make it not possible to discount an MOT no different to France Spain etc…….

[paul knights]

I think people should buy there mot slot online from dvsa and be issued with a code to redeem at garages for there mot pretty much same as road tax and when they take there code to a garage of there choice,they can use the code the garage can then enter the code into the mot computer and the fee then paid direct into the garage account,simple

[Bob Rollins]

I would agree to non discounting if it was honoured by all garages but I’m afraid it won’t happen as some garage‘a would offer a
discount to gain an advantage , it would have to be a law and that won’t happen !!!!

[paul knights]

the mot fee should be paid threw .gov and u should get a code u can redeem at any garage and the garage enters the code to get paid into there account easy

[Gary]

I’ve always said it should be a fixed fee that no one should be allowed to discount. I’m out on breakdown patrol every day for one of the big ones and breakdowns are constant at the minute. Can’t imagine what it’s going to be like once lockdown is eased.

[Darren Smith]

I totaly agree but every mot station needs to do it not just a select few. Really it would need to be enforced by the dvsa and not just an individual’s right to charge as they wish.

[Author]

Posts