The mot debate - Chris Wileman, Castle Garage

Independent garages are being squeezed between a fixed ceiling and a rising floor. At the top sits a government-set maximum MOT fee for a standard Class 4 car test of £54.85, a figure that has gone unchanged since 2010 and is only now under formal review. Underneath, every meaningful cost of running a compliant modern workshop has climbed sharply.

For many motorists, the MOT is seen as a low-value, price-shopped requirement. Although the £54.85 government cap is intended as the maximum, heavy discounting by national chains and online booking platforms has dragged public perception far below that figure. In most areas, the going rate is now between £35 and £45, which is often less than it costs a garage to carry out the test once equipment, staffing, and compliance are factored in. The MOT has become a loss leader rather than a sustainable service, and that mindset ripples across workshop pricing as a whole.

Start with equipment. A compliant MOT bay is not a one-off purchase. A Class 4 lane typically involves investment well into five figures before you even get to ongoing calibration, maintenance contracts, and DVSA-linked upgrades. Lifts, brake testers, emissions analysers, and headlamp aligners all have to be regularly serviced, certified, and kept to standard. Each test the garage carries out must cover those costs while leaving something left to pay for staff, premises, and compliance.

Then there are people. The industry is facing a genuine skills battle. IMI and market data show sustained upward pressure on technician salaries, with skilled vehicle technicians now significantly above 2010 rates and rising fastest where talent is scarcest. At the same time, the National Living Wage has increased, holiday and pension expectations have grown, and technicians rightly expect progression, training, and safe working conditions. If independent garages are to attract and retain the calibre of staff needed to work on complex, modern vehicles, labour rates must reflect professional status, not bargain-basement perceptions anchored to a frozen MOT fee.

Compliance is another hidden drain. DVSA requirements, CPD for MOT testers, health and safety obligations, environmental rules, waste management contracts, software subscriptions, and data protection standards all add layers of fixed cost before a wheel even rolls into the bay. Insurance, energy prices, and business rates have moved in the wrong direction too. Larger groups have already signalled that government policy is forcing them to raise prices to stay viable. Independents feel the same pressure but often lack the confidence, or political voice, to say it.

The result is a structural imbalance: the MOT cap shapes customer expectations across all workshop pricing, while the real economics of running a modern, fully equipped, and fully compliant garage belong in a different decade. Too many businesses are using discounted tests as a loss leader and quietly absorbing the gap. Long term, that is dangerous. It undermines investment, starves training budgets, and risks pushing good people, and good garages, out of the trade.

If we want safe roads, competent technicians, and workshops that invest in the right equipment instead of cutting corners, the conversation on pricing has to continue. That means regulators recognising the true cost of compliance, and it means garages being honest, united, and unapologetic about charging sustainable prices for professional work.