New WOF rules

[iOnic]

I'm more concerned about the job losses. Small garages that rely on WOF's as their bread and butter could go under.

Unless they get proactive and offer 6 monthly "safety inspections" with their servicing. Hell they're already making money on the service, what's another half an hour labour to just look at the car?

If 6 monthly WOF's are such a necessity then I'm sure they'll find just as many things that need repair/replacement as they currently do which will create opportunities for repair work as well. Selling a $30-40 safety inspection is not hard at all and the customers that are gonna jew out on such a small amount will just come back on their knees when they fail what I have no doubt will be a more stringent WOF test anyway.

They'll still lose *some* customers, but some is better than all. If I was running a garage, I'd be thinking about ways that I can make these changes work for me. I'm actually disgusted that all the MTA can do is bitch about it - it was always gonna happen, there is no valid reason why NZ should have one of the most frequent vehicle inspection regimes in the world and as has already been pointed out - a significant number of vehicles that pass, shouldn't be on the road anyway so what's the whole thing actually achieving?

[rollaholic]

yeah, this legislation is not changing the rate at which things wear out.

speaking of which, the article makes no mention of changes to the VIRM - are standards staying the same?

anyway. a place thats relying on warrants to get by has got bigger problems than a change to the frequency of warrant inspections.

[Grrrrrrr!]

VIRM will be updated once they figure out exactly what they are doing.. nothing is going to change for at least 6 more months.

[crispy'86]

VIRM will be updated once they figure out exactly what they are doing.. nothing is going to change for at least 6 more months.

As it is the VIRM just went electronic for wof places. It's good to see the public gets to know before us people in the trade get a heads up .

The amount of people that would prospectively continue on without having a wof or reg on their car for ages won't change, it'll just be the requirements will have to be different to cater for the different categories. i.e new cars, registered pre and post 2000. but that'll all come through when the changes start to form

[Grrrrrrr!]

You've got heaps of time to get a heads up about what the changes are actually going to be. They still have to do the consultation, draft, taking submissions process. MTA could conceivably drag this out till the next election..

When will the changes happen?

...

Changes to the transport rules will be made in 2013, with the new inspection requirements targeted to begin on 1 July 2014. This could be brought forward provided rule-making and other implementation work allows for a reasonable lead-in time before the new inspection system starts.

[Leon]

VIRM will be updated once they figure out exactly what they are doing.. nothing is going to change for at least 6 more months.

18

[fangsport]

. I'm actually disgusted that all the MTA can do is bitch about it - it was always gonna happen, there is no valid reason why NZ should have one of the most frequent vehicle inspection regimes in the world

because we have the worst roads in far as maintenence goes.

[Grrrrrrr!]

Dunno what the roads down in Timaru are like, but roads in the Auckland, northern Waikato and Northland areas are far better than the stuff around Victoria and rural Qld.

[wde_bdy]

Average NZ car owner is a retard (probably same in the rest of the world) who would have no idea what very obvious problems their car has and won't notice bald tyres/$&#$% tierods/rooted suspension. This will just increase the timeframe in which they are made aware of the faults in their vehicles.

Callum

[Mr Revhead]

Average NZ car owner is a retard (probably same in the rest of the world) who would have no idea what very obvious problems their car has and won't notice bald tyres/$&#$% tierods/rooted suspension. This will just increase the timeframe in which they are made aware of the faults in their vehicles.

Callum

What he said.
I am genuinely scared about these people. Making wof checks longer scared me even more

[holden_fan2005]

Now my bro has a truck. It's a 56 dodge body on a HQ chassis. It's reged as a 2010 lvvta dodge due to being a 'kit car' as such.

Would this be on yearly wofs?

[duddley]

If you wanted to make WOF checks safer you would start by getting rid of the clowns who perform WOF's my last WOF got passed with a $&#$% shock and my rear tyres gained .5mm of tread over 6 months and about 15-20 thousand kms.

[rolla_fxgt]

Average NZ car owner is a retard (probably same in the rest of the world) who would have no idea what very obvious problems their car has and won't notice bald tyres/$&#$% tierods/rooted suspension. This will just increase the timeframe in which they are made aware of the faults in their vehicles.

Callum

What he said.
I am genuinely scared about these people. Making wof checks longer scared me even more

Guess Toyotas, Fords, Citerons, Mercedes, and Cherrys should all be banned from sale/use in NZ then.
They've all had serious safety defects from manufacture, some of which have been reasonably intergral to the design of the car.
So they can't be trusted to make safe cars, so lets ban them. Pretty much the argument you guys have for keeping the 6 month WOF. i.e that there's some muppets who don't know how to check there car/don't care, so the rest of us should pay over the odds by greater than $150 million a year.
Some people don't look after their bodies either, should we make 6 monthly health checks compulsory, and all have labels lising our illnesses/ailments on display?

Look I understand the fear of change from the status quo, even if in my opinion its irrational. But when I still see the same people being against it in the face of reason and facts, then I can only assume a vested interest, or idiocy.

[rollaholic]

If you wanted to make WOF checks safer you would start by getting rid of the clowns who perform WOF's my last WOF got passed with a $&#$% shock and my rear tyres gained .5mm of tread over 6 months and about 15-20 thousand kms.

do agree that the first step should have been getting the applicable standards enforced in a more uniform manner.

i have worked with a guy from the UK who used to issue their version of warrants, he said that if you missed something, or a car which you had inspected had a crash and was not up to standard there was potential hell to pay for the individual who issued the sticker (think they call it an MOT or similar)

would reduce the number of dodgy WOFs you'd think.

would probably increase the price of an inspection too due to less people wanting to do it, haha.

[Leon]

Personal opinion of a car enthusiast.

If the price of a WOF doesn't go up, I'm going to eat my hat*

*not literally, because that would be disgusting. But I'd be surprised.

My cynical take on it is that the following conversations will occur:

"We have to check a car more thoroughly now because we must ensure that it is going to be a YEAR before we see it again"

Me: "So howcome for my six monthly WOF on my 1996 car, you are charging me the same as you are now charging for a one year wof?"

"Oh it would be unfair / confusing to have two different wof prices".

Because realistically, businesses WANT to stay in business. Which is fair enough, because they employ people which is cool. People should be employed so that they can keep their families fed and sheltered, plus of course they then spend their wages on everything, which keeps money circulating.

The end of the day though, my strong suspicion is that as a six monthly wof car owner, this "way to save the public time and money" is going to end up costing me money. Because I'm not rich enough to own a newer than 2000 car.

[Dell'Orto]

Now my bro has a truck. It's a 56 dodge body on a HQ chassis. It's reged as a 2010 lvvta dodge due to being a 'kit car' as such.

Would this be on yearly wofs?

Yes, and I would imagine that he didn't just leave the original HQ gear underneath it, so it ought to be fine for a yearly WOF anyway.

[rollaholic]

Personal opinion of a car enthusiast.

i tend to agree, and it does seem to me a slightly odd area to try and make a saving.

after all, most of the money 'saved' is being used to pay peoples wages and so forth. its not like there is a big conspiracy with a bunch of workshop owners laughing about 6 monthly warrants from the comfort of their super yachts.

[tsoob]

I'm a little concerened, not for the loss of business, as we really dont do a shit load of WOF tyres.

However I am concerened at the idiots who buy secondhand tyres to replace their already shitty 1.5mm just pass a wof tread tyres.

We see some scary shit that people drive around on, and id hate to thing if they have another 6 months to let them wear what will happen.

My 2 C

[crispy'86]

I'm a little concerened, not for the loss of business, as we really dont do a shit load of WOF tyres.

However I am concerened at the idiots who buy secondhand tyres to replace their already shitty 1.5mm just pass a wof tread tyres.

We see some scary shit that people drive around on, and id hate to thing if they have another 6 months to let them wear what will happen.

My 2 C

Exactly my thoughts and we see the same through work. And people are just oblivious to the condition of their car when it comes to wof time. Had a perfect example; a car came in for a tyre that had blown out. Was down to the steelbelts on the inside edges of all the tyres on it. yet the owner didn't seem to worry about it and had no wof/reg for at least 4 months

[Leon]

Yeah the "average" Kiwi has a terrifying approach of ignorance towards vehicle maintenance.

So halving the number of times a trained person actually looks at a car owned by a complete ignoramus, *before* the cultural shift towards understanding that cars need things replaced or inspected ...