‘Huge pressure’ on inspections
The Motor Trade Association (MTA) is urging the owners of vehicles with temporary extensions to warrants of fitness (WOFs) expiring on October 10 to organise checks now.
On the flipside, it is warning them to be realistic about how quickly their vehicles can be seen.
The advice from the MTA comes on the back of the NZTA confirming that some 620,000 WOF extension tests are still to be completed on top of warrants expiring in September and October as a matter of course.
“This is going to put huge pressure on the industry,” says Greig Epps, the MTA’s advocacy and strategy manager.
“We have one simple message for owners of vehicles who were granted the extension and are still to get a new WOF. And that’s if you want to have any chance of driving on October 11, you need to organise a booking now and you will need to be patient.
“We know our members will do everything they can to support their customers and ensure they can drive safely and legally. But with only four weeks to go until the extension ends, there is only so much capacity in the system and vehicle owners will need to be understanding.”
Epps, pictured, says the 620,000 extension-related checks are only part of the story. “On top of those, you have 500,000 WOFs naturally expiring each month. That takes us to 1,620,000 inspections to be completed between now and the end of October. That’s more than 231,000 checks a week.
“Then you have to remember that 40 per cent of vehicles fail their initial checks. That’s 648,000 re-checks plus any remedial work that needs to be completed.
“And, of course, some of the vehicles due inspections haven’t been checked now for well over 12 months meaning the first-time failure rate may be higher. Even if we assume a failure rate of 40 per cent, that now takes us to a total of 2,268,000 inspections.”
The MTA says it will work closely with the NZTA to address the huge problems the industry faces. However, many MTA members are wondering why the government has been unwilling to take action to avoid the backlog.
“We first raised concerns about the risks of the extension and the lack of a well-thought out exit strategy back in April,” says Epps.
“The MTA and other members of the industry have repeatedly urged the government to adopt a progressive return for the extensions to avoid this very situation that we’re now in. It would have also mitigated the massive drop in business repairers will experience next April.
“Regrettably, our advice was rejected. We can only hope the lesson of trusting the advice of industry leaders has now been learned and we won’t end up in this situation again.”
Read Autofile’s story from August for more on this issue.
