OT: buying a car on ebay with no road tax or MOT

Volff ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Yep.

There's no "I just bought it on fleaBay" exemption.

Trailer time.

Personnaly I'd request the seller does the MOT, unless you know *exactly* what your getting!

I suspect it has several minor fail points but nothing serious. The seller dodged the question when I asked. Not having a suitable off road parking spot is going to be a problem for me, though. I think I'll leave it and if it doesn't sell on ebay, try to inspect it for myself.

Volff ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Run away. Don't walk away. Run away.

Oh, ffs.

Adrian ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Tell us the item number, though...

It's 4553982266.

All comments welcome.

Forget it. If you live locally, know enough about cars to be able to get it through an MOT for pretty much no money and want a cheap car it may be worth a go - but TBH even the starting price of 50 quid is looking a bit high for that.

cheers, clive

Volff ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Apart from "Why on earth do you want a flamin' Volvo 360?"?

If I couldn't get to see it personally, I think I'd put a bottom line along the lines of :- "I'm happy to add the price of an MOT to the bid price, if you MOT it. If it fails, give me the fail sheet. But if it's failed on anything I regard as non-trivial, I reserve the right to back out."

If he's genuine, that shouldn't be an issue.

Perfect buy if you've got a dead one you're replacing, otherwise buy someting for £80 with an MOT

The message from Adrian contains these words:

Pretty much what I wondered!

Provided you have it insured, and the test is pre-booked, you can drive it to any MOT station of your choice, regardless of distance.

The message from "SimonJ" contains these words:

I've a feeling it says "Nearest convenient" or words to that effect.

It doesn't.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Volff saying something like:

Assuming it's solid, it'd be all right if you had the space to work on it. You say you haven't, so it'd be best to leave it well alone. All sorts of shit can happen if you're working on an untaxed, untested, uninsured vehicle in the street.

I don't believe that for one minute. The question has cropped up several times in the past. So far no one has been able to offer any hard evidence that that belief is true. Regardless of what that particular law says, I can see the actual enforcement, and interpretation of it it a court of law, would include something like,' within reasonable distance' To me it's inconceivable that the law which allows a car without an MOT to be driven to a testing station, means a car from John O' Groats, without an MOT, could be legally driven to Lands End to an MOT testing station. Mike.

Difficult to see why it would be specifically outlawed, even if you are driving it to a prebooked MOT it still has to conform to the C&U regulations, the MOTs just paperwork to confirm that.

The law must make allowances for those cars that are driven to an MOT testing station that fail. If it didn't, all the drivers of such cars would have committed a prosecutable offence. It follows therefore that the law accepts that a car driven to a prebooked MOT might be unroadworthy. This is the main reason why I say it would be absurd, if that same law also allowed such cars to be driven from one end of the country to the other without a current MOT. Until it's actually tested, the average driver wouldn't know if it conformed to C&U regs or not. Mike.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Mike G" saying something like:

Doesn't matter what you believe. It's true.

It doesn't

Not neccesarily, failing an MOT does not make a car unroadworthy, for example, a car can fail MOT on a blown numberplate light bulb, but it would not be unroadworthy.

It is illegal to drive an unroadworthy car on a public road at any time, regardless of whether you are taking it to an MOT or not.