The legal requirements around maintaining your caravan are sometimes unclear. Every so often, the question of whether or not a caravan needs an MOT will crop up.
Does my caravan need an MOT? You are not legally required to MOT test your caravan. However, it is your legal responsibility to make sure the caravan is in roadworthy condition.
So while your caravan doesn’t require an MOT in the same way your car does, it’s important to ensure you keep it roadworthy. Let’s take a closer look at what it means to keep your caravan in a roadworthy condition and how it will affect your insurance.
Keeping Your Caravan Roadworthy
While researching for this blog post, I tried to find some official information regarding the rules around keeping your caravan roadworthy. I couldn’t find anything from the government regarding the rules to keep your caravan roadworthy. On the other hand, several insurers advise that regular services are essential to keeping your caravan safe for the roads. So how important is it to keep your caravan roadworthy?
Since caravans do not require any form of MOT, it is your responsibility as the owner to keep it in a roadworthy condition. If you fail to keep your trailer in a roadworthy condition, you could struggle to sell it. Furthermore, if you’re found at fault in the case of an accident and it’s because your caravan wasn’t in a suitable condition, you could face a hefty fine or points on your licence.
If you keep your trailer in a roadworthy condition through regular servicing, your caravan insurance will be cheaper. While you aren’t required to have caravan insurance by law, it will protect you if your caravan is damaged or stolen. You can reduce what you have to pay for caravan insurance by assuring the insurer that you regularly service your unit.
How To Keep Your Caravan Roadworthy
It’s possible to keep your caravan in a roadworthy condition yourself if you don’t want the extra expense of regular servicing. In my experience, there are some parts of a caravan service that you can handle yourself. For example, checking the tyres. However, there are some parts of the service that you should leave to professionals. For instance, checking the gas and electric systems are operating as they should be.
There is plenty to check as part of a caravan service, including:
- Gas systems
- Water systems
- Electrical system
- Ventilation
- Chassis
- Equipment
- Suspension
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Brakes
- Lights
You can check the majority of these things yourself. To illustrate, anyone can check that the rear lights on a caravan are working, or that the tyre pressure is acceptable.
However, there are some more advanced checks that the average caravan owner can’t viably complete. For example, checking the gas system for leaks.
My advice would be to do all the checks that you can do yourself before taking your caravan for a service. Most workshops can just check the gas, electric and water systems for you if you complete the rest of the service. This way you’ll save some money without cutting corners that could cost you dearly.
Reasons To Service Your Caravan
Servicing your caravan can often seem like an unnecessary annoyance. Getting your caravan serviced is actually a really good idea for several reasons.
Maintain Warranties
This point doesn’t apply to caravans from every manufacturer, but it’s something that you might not realise. Did you know that your caravan warranty could be voided if you don’t service your caravan at least once per year?
Warranties are tricky things sometimes. There are loads of clauses in there to try and catch you out. Some manufacturers will slip in clauses that say you must service your caravan once every so often. For example, once every two years.
The regularity with which you need to service your caravan will differ from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Lower Insurance Premiums
As I said before, caravan insurance isn’t something you legally need. However, it is certainly something that you should invest in if you want to be protected. If you want your insurance to be slightly cheaper, service your caravan!
Some caravan insurers will stipulate that your caravan needs to be serviced regularly or they won’t insure it. However, some insurers will ask how regularly you service your caravan. If you tell them you service it regularly, the insurance premium will often be cheaper.
It’s important to be honest when getting insurance quotes. But just remember that by servicing your caravan, you could end up saving a lot of money in other ways.
Longer Lifespan
A caravan is something that requires regular servicing in the way that a car does. If you don’t service your caravan, the quicker it will age. The quicker it ages, the sooner it will fall into an unusable condition. Ultimately, you end up losing all your money and the caravan that you have invested in.
Regular servicing allows you to keep your caravan in brilliant condition for years to come. The vast majority of caravan owners see the logic in servicing their unit because it can elongate its lifespan.
Although a service might seem like a costly, unnecessary hassle, it protects your investment.
How Regularly Should You Service Your Caravan?
This is a question that has no definitive answer: how regularly should you service your caravan? In my opinion, you should service your caravan every year. I service my caravan once a year because I use it several times throughout the year and then it sits outside for months out of season.
As part of a service, your caravan will be gas and damp tested. You can’t risk missing either of these tests, and a caravan can easily succumb to damp if it’s left outside for vast chunks of time. That’s why I think it’s really important that a caravan is serviced annually.
Caravan Guard, a business providing caravan insurance, did a survey asking owners how often they serviced their caravan. The results revealed that 88% of caravan owners get their caravan serviced annually. Several participants stated that they wouldn’t start the season without a service, which I’d agree with.
As we all know, gas faults, wrecked brakes and dodgy tyres are just a few potential dangers that owners risk when not servicing their caravan. It’s better to service your caravan every year, or at least every couple of years, to avoid these risks.
Where Can I Get My Caravan Serviced?
It is possible to service your caravan yourself. However, if you’re anything like me, you don’t have the time, skills, or inclination to service your caravan yourself.
There are workshops across the country that service caravans. It’s likely that there are several in your area. If you don’t already have a workshop in mind, I would recommend checking out the Approved Workshop website.
The Approved Workshop Scheme is a joint enterprise between the NCC, The Caravan and Motorhome Club, and The Camping and Caravanning Club. Workshops that participate in the scheme pass annual inspections and have to follow the standards set out by the scheme. Essentially, it’s a great place to look if you don’t already have a reliable workshop in mind.
You can find an Approved Workshop near you by visiting the website.
