I took my old Ducati 851 for MOT today and everything was going well till it came to time to check the headlamp main beam alignment - not a glimmer even though it was fine last night. I know the garage well and tester dug out a bulb for me to replace so that it could be retested but when I took the bulb out it looked OK. Thought I would replace it anyway only to find that dipped beam no longer worked either. Twiddling with various wires indicated that I had a fault somewhere and to cut a long story short an hour later I found that I could not get the bike to start. I have Carole Nash multibike insurance which includes breakdown recovery so decided to call them but was told that as the bike was not showing as taxed they would not recover it. I explained that you were allowed to take an untaxed bike for a prebooked MOT but to no avail. I had to ask my wife to take time off work to come and collect me and will now need to go back with a trailer tomorrow to collect my bike. Needless to say I will not be insuring with them again but would like to know whether they were right to refuse recovery or whether I should pursue this further?
Pursue it - I just got £200 back from my Gas/Electric supplier for cocking up on a technicality and £60 from the Royal Mail for sending something to the wrong country as they seem to like doing. If you can be arsed then go for it. Better with insurance companies as there is an ombudsman I think? If so I found out the Gas & Electric Ombudsman charge the companies a set £500 on top of any upheld complaint as well as the compensation you get - so threaten this and see what happens...
Arseholes...its this kind of shit that gives insurance company's a bad rep. I hope you get resolution. Nothing worse than being left in the lurch when you need help
Except they are not wrong. T&cs will state it must be road legal and road worthy. It stops people buying stuff at say an auction then getting it towed home. It's a shitter, and they may help as a gesture if you are an established customer. Another thing would be thread ombudsman, as it's a £500 immediate bill for them...
It would be Road legal and roadcworthy in the case stated above though - small print will be interesting for sure, worth checking.
Bradders is right. The majority of breakdown suppliers won't touch the car if its missing either insurance, tax or MOT. And they do check. But to be fair on C.Nash they don't do the recovery, its an agent and up to them.
Carole Nash were absolutely crap with their quote for my SS - three times more than Bennetts and I still found someone cheaper (Ducati weren't any good either). Carole Nash are also supposed to be the Harley insurers - and guess what? Absolute crap quote - much higher than Bennetts; Devitts etc. I won't even bother to ask them for a quote the next time I need to insure.
It's not for T&cs. Also, it's not legal if you go to the shop on the way there or back...it's a common wheeze but is normally dealt with by using common sense and offering PAYG or similar. But what would I know, I only worked in the undusrtry 12 years and wrote the Carole Nash T&Cs when implementing it for they AA. I bow again to your obvious extensive knowledge
I wasn't contradicting you at all - your attitude said that as it often does. But considering you wrote the T&C's I would deffo recommend he has a read
they will have changed when moved to whatever tin-pot company they are using now (call assist is it?!)
Well, I for one can't knock C.Nash ... Been with them since 2001. Always far cheaper than anyone, and for me the three or 4 times I needed breakdown only once did it go wrong. That was the recovery guys fault for not bringing a bike recovery vehicle, so I ended up sitting on the side of the A1 for 4 hours.
Until yesterday I would have agreed with you - have been with Carole Nash a long time and have used their recovery service before without any problems which is why I was so disappointed in their attitude. Fair enough they have to avoid scams but I have had the old Ducati (and a few other bikes) insured with them for a number of years and it was taxed last year. It had been SORNed over the winter and needed to be MOTd before I could tax it and the law allows you to take it for a prebooked MOT - all easy to verify. A simple call to the MOT centre could have confirmed that this was what I had done or it may even have shown up on the MOT database as having just failed on the headlight beam so it was obvious that it was a genuine case and I was not doing anything illegal.
Hmmmm. I don't bother with SORN, I think it just produces cans of worms but i only have the one bike to worry about and the only months I don't tend to ride it are December, January and February If the bike had been taxed and the MOT carried out earlier than the due date, this situation would never have arisen. Incidentally, if the bike is on SORN and legally ridden to an MOT station, is it still legal to ride it back home if it fails that MOT??
Seems Clarke above to me. If it fails you cannot drive it on the road back. You can, however, if it's repaired drive it back without MOT. Can you do that with tax tho?
He's right ... If the vehicle is in anyway in a dangerous condition you can still get done by the Police. This includes bald tyres, dangerous bodywork, broken windscreen, brakes, fuel leaks etc etc. As for riding it home for repairs .. Thats a no. It must be a 'pre-booked' appointment. Otherwise everyone would say when stopped "I'm just taking it to my mates for repair".
