How do you put your car through its Spanish MOT (called ITV in Spain)? I take you through the process so you can do it yourself.

Prefer to watch the video? Click the picture below.

How do you put your car through the Spanish MOT?
What documents do you need?
Do you need to speak Spanish?
Stick around and you’ll find out!

First thing you should do is book your car into your trusted local garage and ask them to check it ready for the test. They reset the headlight beam for me (they’re quite strict on this in the test) and checked everything else was ok, like having matching tyres on each axle, no fault lights on the dashboard etc, they should know exactly what to do.

Make sure you’ve got the car documents.
In Spain, the equivalent of the car’s log book is actually two separate documents.. 
There’s the fiscia tecnica, which has all of the technical specifications.
Then there’s the permiso de circulacion.

Some more recent cars have digital documents so you might not have the paper copies, but ITV stations require you to have the paper copies. I asked my Gestor to sort my Permiso out for me, it took more than a week to get it so bear that in mind when you’re booking your test. You can ask at an ITV centre, but you’ll need to book an appointment for that, so best get it sorted before you book the test. 

Make sure there’s only one ITV sticker on your car windscreen, any more is illegal. It’s in the top right hand corner as you look from the inside.

Also make sure the car hasn’t been modified in any way since the last ITV, it must match the documents.

If you’re used to the MOT test in the UK or Ireland, you’ll notice one big difference. In Spain you stay in the car during the process and operate the controls. 

So if you’re taking a car in for a friend, make sure you familiarise yourself with all of the controls like light switches (full and dipped beam), fog lamps, windscreen wash and wipe, hazard lights etc

On the day of the test, first go to the machine in the ITV centre’s reception, input your metricula (registration number), pay the fee & take your ticket

Then wait for your registration number & lane number to come up on the board in reception or outside in the car park. Expect to wait for a bit, we waited nearly an hour but it shouldn’t be that long.

Then you drive round to the entrance to the centre and find your lane. The number should be on the left of the lane so don’t get confused.

There were 8 lanes altogether where we were, it depends on the size and location of the test centre, we were in Malaga so it was quite big. 

The whole place was like a factory.

The order of the tests can be different in different places too, but the process is the same everywhere, there’s a national standard.

They will check the dashboard lights, the size of your tyres, the headlights, rear lights, fog lights, brake lights, reverse lights, and light beam level. 

They make sure your lights are all clean, they put you on the rolling road to check front & rear brakes, handbrake, there’s an undercarriage test with plate sliders to shake the car, you’ll be asked to wiggle the wheel and turn it hard right then hard left, 

Then finally you drive out & wait for the result and the paperwork and the new sticker if it’s a pass.

Don’t return to the line, or you’ll be in trouble!

Then you’re done for a year or two depending on the age of the vehicle. Mine was less than ten years old so I got two years. Yay!

Here are some handy Spanish words & phrases so you’ll understand what they’re asking you to do.

Coche = car
neumáticos = tyres
antiniebla = foglight
marche atras = rear light
pon = turn on/put on
pon marche atras = put in reverse
pon las luces = put lights on
largas = long/full beam
parabrisas = windscreen wipers
frenos = brakes
agua = water
apagar el motor = turn off engine
arrancar el motor/coche = turn on engine
neutral = neutral
punto muerto = neutral (dead point)
adelante = forwards
favorable = pass
desfavorable = fail

And that’s about it.

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Article by Skatz