An average 66% of MoT dates in dealer management systems are incorrect, according to eDynamix.

It ran an MoT cleanse project with two OEM partners and the error rate includes 10% of vehicle records that had no associated MoT date, and 56% where the date was incorrect by more than 30 days.

eDynamix found that more than 28% of vehicles had gone through an ownership change since the last visit and 2.5% of active vehicles in the dealers’ database had been scrapped.

Iain Nickalls, director at eDynamix, said: “These figures suggest dealers are wasting much time, money and energy sending MoT reminder communications to customers who no longer own the vehicle, or when the MoT is not actually due which can mount into tens of thousands of pounds annually in SMS messages, letters and staff time.

“With varying service intervals, annual MOT’s don’t necessarily fall in line with service events, and those customers without a service plan are more likely to look at other options for their MoT when this happens,” he said.

“This, plus the cost of sending unnecessary communication to customers are reasons why it is essential to ensure that MoT dates are correct in dealer management systems. Dealers could be missing out on hundreds of thousands of pounds in revenue not only from the MoT test itself, but also from the associated upsell opportunity.”

eDynamix is a DVLA data partner and has processed more than two million records through its MoTCleanse solution so far.

Once cleansed, the data is returned to the dealer for upload back into most DMS systems.