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Comment by cbg0 | Hacker News Reader

Interesting to see that cars in Denmark undergo their first inspection after 5 years, here in Romania new cars get their mandatory inspection after 3 years and then every 2 years. I wonder if these high failure rates will lead to policy change in Denmark.

We're not just talking about panel gaps anymore, problems with braking and steering are a huge risk for everyone on the road, not just the owners of these vehicles.

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In The Netherlands cars have to be inspected every year. That’s part of the reason why second hand cars are so expensive here, they are exported en masse because they’re well maintained and popular everywhere.

No they do not. The fist inspection is after four years and then every two years. Full inspection starts after year 7 (so from 8 onwards).

See https://www.rdw.nl/particulier/voertuigen/landbouwvoertuig/a...

For Finland it is 4 years, then 2 years until 10 years from registration and then yearly.

Lot of this probably comes from warranties and how usually cars have yearly maintenance where they should fix most issues.

But the yearly inspection is not very strict. I see many 15-30 year old cars in Finnish traffic that don't seem to be able to pass the German inspection. Have never seen any good comparison of the inspection criteria

In my country you leave a certain amount for the inspector somewhere in the dash area or in your vehicle booklet. At least in the past I've known some people to do it for older cars, there were ways to bypass emissions tests and ignore some minor issues. Also, I once failed the brake fluid check and I had to repeat the inspection. Since I didn't have time to do a full drain, I just went to a nearby garage to suck it out from the overflow container with a syringe and top it off with fresh fluid. This was just to pass the test and I would fully replace it later.

Sigh, we have to do a yearly inspection in Croatia. And the first one is after only 2 years, and this even was introduced recently. Just a few years ago you would have to do an inspection immediately when first registering the vehicle - yes, a brand new car out of the dealership. It's still not clear to me why my car dealer who does yearly service can't just notify the authorities that it passes all the checks.

This is a huge logic jump from my perspective, just because you have some manufacturer with lots of issues, the solution is to consider a <4 years old car in general as a possibly problematic one and inspect it earlier ? For me the outcome should be to put those manufacturers in a list and scrutinize them.

Most MOT points in most countries aree wear related or regulatory, not functionality of the car. A car which is not moving due to breaking easily is not an issue. Critical failures will always result in full immediate recalls.

you-guys-are-getting-paid/inspections.png?

In Illinois, USA, there's outright no vehicle inspections AFAIK for electric vehicles whatsoever after the sale of the vehicle has completed. There's a yearly registration fee paid to the state, and the state has "emissions testing" for vehicles over 2y (model year) old, but EVs are explicitly exempt and so AFAIK the only inspections that would ever occur are in the event an owner has their vehicle serviced by a dealer.

In my US State they don't even do emissions testing except in areas with air quality issues. I've never had a mandatory car inspection in 50 years of driving.

I'm sure this adds to the terrible headlights, noise, and smoke I see coming from vehicles here.

A new car usually has a service/maintenance plan that might be 3 years or so, so it makes sense to only mandate inspections once that does not happen anymore.

Those service plans are not mandatory and they don't need to be very comprehensive, for ICEs it usually revolves around changing the oil and filters, it doesn't include comprehensive checks of the car's functionality.

Not so sure about that...

Yes the service plan is not mandatory, but when your car comes with an 8 year warrantee, then it's best to actually go and have the services performed, as it might pay off in the long term. A car is basically an amalgamation of consumable items. _Everything_ eventually wears out. To not specify some form of maintenance plan or schedule is absolute madness.

On all the cars that I've owned, there was a comprehensive "inspect" section that details things like lights, suspension, brakes, seals, exhaust/muffler etc etc. Many of the "inspect"s will then be things like check the brake pad wear, check the fluid levels,

It's in the manufacturer's best interest to inspect every inch of a new car as part of that service plan, so that they can find and fix any small issues that might become big and expensive issues down the line. Faults on cars compound over time, and something as innocuous as a low coolant level today could result in a grenaded engine down the line if not caught and rectified early enough.

> for ICEs it usually revolves around changing the oil and filters, it doesn't include comprehensive checks of the car's functionality.

It actually does. The list of the checks is different and expanded by each new year and one can find it in the vehicle booklet.

In the UK first inspection is at 3 years and then every year after that. I wonder if the UK data looks any different due to the more onerous inspection schedule.

UK is first inspection (called an MOT) at 3 years, then every 1 year until the car is considered 'classic' - after 40 years with caveats

In Switzerland it's 5, then 3, then every 2 years.

> I wonder if these high failure rates will lead to policy change in Denmark.

I mean, it's one brand, so probably not.

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