The Controle Technique - The MOT Test Equivalent

In order to legally drive your car on Belgian roads you need to have valid insurance, hold a licence, be taxed and have a valid Controle Technique or CT.  Now I must distinguish between having the right documents to be able to drive and to actually drive whilst remaining within the bounds of the law.  I have no idea whether the problems of the UK such as failing to pay road tax, failing to hold insurance, no valid MOT and driving without a licence are as prevalent here in Belgium.  One can only assume that there are similar problems.

When you register your car you get issued a number plate, which has a special mark stamped on it, this means that it is taxed.  Tax is relatively expensive and is linked to the power of your engine.  The UK is catching up with this but the big difference here is that you can get your plate and they will send you a bill for the tax a few weeks or even a month or more later.  In the UK we pay up front otherwise no tax and therefore no car allowed on the road.  It is surprisingly common to be billed after receiving the services or at least that is what I have found in my experience here.

You can arrange insurance here much the same way as you can in the UK except that it is less expensive to arrange it face to face rather than online.  Insurance, I believe, is less expensive here.  You need to be aware that if you have an accident and you cannot agree with the other party as to who is at fault then the police will be called and the cars will remain where they are, however inconvenient it is to the rest of the road users.  As you can imagine, the police are called just about every time.  In my experience (as a passing motorist) I have never seen an accident that has not involved the police deciding who is to blame.  They can be in some very awkward places.  In the UK the police are reluctant to get involved unless there is death or injury and then there is not much choice.  Cars are shifted out of the way as quickly as possible as the idea is to get the traffic flowing.

To allow you to drive your car on the road you need a CT, which is the equivalent of the MOT test.  The CT is conducted by specialist centres and all they do is test vehicles, they do not find faults and then offer to repair them at inflated prices.  But then that is not to say that there is no corruption.  It is quite likely that they will recommend local garages to fix your problems and who knows what back handers are in place here.  You must CT your car when it reaches 4 years old and if you buy/sell it (regardless of age).  The CT is reasonably priced at around 50 Euros, although if it fails it costs you around 12 euros per retest and you only have a couple of weeks in which to get the repair done.

I took my car to get tested and it failed on the headlights, basically there is an adjustment lever to dampen down the headlamps and this was not acceptable.  Now, I had had my car tested the last time I was in Belgium and it passed with the same headlights and it was tested at the same centre.  What does this tell me?  Well it says to me that no matter who you ask for advice you will likely get a different answer when you ask again, this is a theme when it comes to officials.  It would appear that advice varies with the time of day.  In this case I was told I must change even though I produced the same certificate that they had given me and shown them the adjustment lever on the lights.  As it was about to cost me over 1000 euros I made absolutely certain that it was required.

Now, changing the lights, that was an experience in itself.  I was recommended to a garage that could do the work so I rang up and explained that I had right hand drive lights fitted and I needed left hand drive lights to replace them and make my car road legal by passing the CT.  I was asked for the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) so they could get the right parts, the alarm bells should have begun to ring here, this was a British car and therefore the VIN would refer to UK spec lights.  Not to worry I had made it very, very clear what my requirements were and the person on the phone acknowledged my requirements.  To add to the complications I needed to get the lights changed before the CT certificate expired and before I went on holiday just over a weeks time.  The car was duly booked in and on the day I had to juggle the cars with An to enable me to drop it off.  I checked to make sure the parts had arrived but, crucially I did not check to ensure they were left hand drive lights.

It took all afternoon and I had to ring them to see whether they had finished.  When I called they said there was a problem and I knew what it was, dreaded it really.  I arrived, having juggled with An's car and a bicycle (the garage is about 2kms from An's work).  when I got there they started with the excuses about the VIN and whether I really needed left hand drive lights.  They had fitted a brand new set of right hand drive lights.  I re-iterated that I needed to pass the CT test, as I had explained at length when on the telephone.  They then started asking me who I had spoken to, in a bid to feign ignorance or language issues.  I said it was a bloke but I did not get a name.  The person in question was standing quietly at the back looking sheepish, he admitted freely that he had taken the call and that I had specifically asked for left hand drive lights.  They then offered to re-do the work, which would involve re-ordering the correct parts.  I told them I was going on holiday and that I would begin work the Monday after ie there was only what was left of this week to get it done.  I also said that my CT would expire and that this would cost me.  They managed after I had to state my personal circumstances again that they would fit me in before the end of the week.

Do you know I did wonder what they must have thought as they replaced perfectly functioning right hand drive lights with brand new right hand drive lights and thought that it must be ok.  I mean what sort of idiot British driver would drive to Belgium to have his lights replaced when they work?  Words escaped me.  I did make this clear to them and they did pay my additional CT test fee as a result.

The moral of the story, well trust no one and try and remain calm.  In my bid to keep my car legal and get it registered it had cost me a lot of money and a great deal of inconvenience.  I have to say we have found a local garage that deals mainly with Volvo, this is because An's car is a Volvo.  They are excellent and I would thoroughly recommend them, in fact it amazes me that they manage to turn a profit.  They are very dedicated and helpful people.  They also bill you rather than ask for payment up front, they work out of an industrial unit and are called Carzone.  They were recommended by a tyre company that I suspect damaged the bearings on An's car when they removed the front wheels.  We could not prove it and left it too long after having the tyres replaced to going back to them to challenge them.  Another lesson for us there. 

One of the frustrating things I have found when living in Belgium is not knowing where to go or who to trust for such things as cars or building/trade advice.  Back home I know all of the places to go to get reliable and honest work done.  I also know where to go to find the parts.  I do think that the labour charges here in Belgium are lower than that of the UK, a bonus really.