Periodic Vehicle Inspection

MOT:
MOT is an abbreviation of: Algemene Periodieke Keuring (General Periodic Inspection). The MOT is mandatory. The MOT increases road safety and requires environmental defects to be resolved. New petrol cars must be inspected 4 years after the first registration date. After that, twice every 2 years, and then every year. New diesel or LPG cars must be inspected for the first time after 3 years, and then also every year. Cars older than 30 years only have to be inspected every 2 years. Cars from before 1960 do not have to be inspected at all.

The inspection report that is issued after each MOT states when the inspection expires. When this date is exceeded, the vehicle may be parked on public roads for up to 2 months after that date, without being driven (except to the MOT station). After these 2 months the car must be declared off the road (suspended) and parked out of sight on private property. If the car is not suspended, the owner will automatically receive a fine after those 2 months.

The MOT is a snapshot and therefore does not guarantee that the car will not break down during the rest of the year. At the time of inspection, the car is in a condition that is safe enough to participate in traffic at that moment (snapshot). The MOT can be carried out by garages or the RDW (Rijksdienst Wegverkeer – Netherlands Vehicle Authority). Garages must have a permit for this and employ trained staff. When an MOT is registered as completed by a garage, there is a chance that a random check will be carried out by the RDW. The car is then re-inspected by RDW staff. These random inspection officers check whether the garage was right to approve or reject the car. If a defect is found during a random check that the garage has overlooked, the garage receives penalty points. After a certain number of penalty points, the garage can even be temporarily prohibited from performing MOT inspections, for example for several months. During that period they cannot carry out inspections.

A car is checked on many points. Here is a “small selection” of the checks:

• Tyres (minimum tread depth 1.6 mm, below that: rejection. At 2.5 mm or less an annotation will be made on the registration certificate as A.C. (advisory note). In addition, there are checks for hairline cracks or large tears where the carcass (metal) in the tyre is visible, or metal objects such as nails, etc.
• Braking performance (checking brake deceleration on the brake test bench)
• Exhaust emission measurement (Petrol: 4-gas measurement, Diesel: soot measurement)
• Headlight aim (and the functioning adjustment mechanism if present)
• Lighting
• Seat belts
• Battery mounting
• Shock absorbers (leaks etc.)
• Springs (breakage)
• Rust on specific body parts and brake lines
• Brake hoses
• Rubbers / boots

There are many more points, but there is also an MOT manual of a few hundred pages for that. This can also be consulted on the RDW website.