A MOT can be a costly part of running a car. Every car that is over three years old needs to have a valid MOT certificate to be driven on the roads in the UK. Often you may not find out what is wrong with your car in terms of it passing an MOT until you take it in and this can make it very hard to budget for it. An MOT test can cost as little as £20 but you may then be presented with a quote for hundreds of pounds of work that needs doing to the car in order to get it to pass.
There are a number of components that are checked during an MOT test and some of them have to be done using specialist equipment (meaning you will not be able to do the checks yourself). Other components can be checked though by you to try and work out what work may be required for the car to pass the MOT. Light bulbs, seat belts and even washer fluid levels are all checked as part of the MOT and these things are easy to check. If you find any bulbs that need replacing you can buy them yourself and fit them meaning you will not have to wait for a retest if that is the only thing it fails on.