Emissions Testing

I wonder if anyone can clear this up for me.

My Elan M100 is a 1995 built car and has an M plate registration to match this. The car though was not registered in the UK until 2001 (spent it's early years in the Isle of Mann), therefore this is on the V5 document. Why then is the car not on an 01 plate? This goes on ...

According to the MOT manual flowchart, any vehicle whose date registered was after August 1995 and which isn't on the database gets tested as a generic CAT with a 0.3% CO pass/fail level. Any vehicle with first use prior to that qualifies for a non-CAT test with a 3.5% CO pass/fail level.

These are the prefix's for registrations:
M 1 August 1994 – 31 July 1995
N 1 August 1995 – 31 July 1996

In the case of the Elan M100 ... unless the car is unlucky enough to be registered in late 95/96, which some are, then the majority are tested with a non-cat test.

My issue is that my last MOT station did the emissions test using the 0.3%. It passed fine (0.17%) but since I have installed a larger bore exhaust system with a sports cat and a pre cat eliminator. Being an M registration, shouldn't it be tested as a non-cat or is it because the V5 document states it was registered in 2001? Which then brings me back to why is my car an M reg?

In the special notes section of my v5 is stated: was registered and/or used elsewhere in the UK. Declared manufactured 1995.

Enjoy working all that out ... please?

Chris,

Maybe I'm missing the point here but if your car was manufactured in 1995 it is quite right that it has a 1995 registration. If there is no absolute proof of the car's actual date of manufacture DVLA will asume that it is early 1995, hence the M plate.

With you car coming from IOM (to all intents and purposes a 'foreign' registration) your change to a standard UK registration is the equivalent of an import - all of which are given plates allied to their year of munfacture, not their year of first registration.

(There is a small anomaly to this norm whereby you can declare a car 'new at first registration' such that a car manufactured in 1995 but stored in a park until being distributed to a garage in 1997 then the car might well get a P plate. This is a sop to the car retail industry to allow them to shift 'old' (but new in the sense that they are unused and unregistered) stock)

To summarise, it is always the year of manufacture that determines the plate that a car carries.

As far asthe MoT is concerned, with the set up you have the emissions will almost certainly beat a pre August 1995 terst criteria as well as the post August 95 test criteria so it probably doesn't matter all the tiem you have a cat fitted. The special note on the V5 should guide the tester to the rightconclusion. Also, if your car wasn't on the VOSA MoT database last year, it will have been added at that time with the data/parameters used for the test at that time. I suspect that the tester will find that when he puts in the VRN/chassis no and all will be hunky dory.

Thanks Mike. I have been trying to figure out the relation between the registration prefix, registered in the UK date and the regulations by which it will have to pass on for the MOT. By the sounds of it, it comes down to how the tester interprets the year of the car. The S2 Elan apparently isn't in the VOSA database so it could be seen as a pre 1995 car, a 2001 car in my case, or a car with a 1990 engine. I'm sure I'm just over worrying about my new setup and the emissions which it should pass by but it doesn't sounds like it will be too much of an issue after all.

Think I should have sat in front of the tv tonight instead