While the number of technical inspections increased further in 2021, the rate of counter-visits and failures, whether minor or critical, was down slightly. Good news for the state of the vehicle fleet, even if tires, lights and brakes are too often neglected.
With a constantly aging vehicle fleet in France, the number of technical inspections has increased over the years. While it had already progressed in 2020, despite the confinements, it increased further by 2.98% in 2021. The 6,554 approved centers in France thus saw more than 21 million vehicles passing through! Among them, a little over 2.5 million were light commercial vehicles (category N1) and only 35,807 models in gray card collection, which only have to pass this examination every five years. The two wheels and quadricycles were obviously absent and will still be in 2022, the project to impose a technical control on them having been canceled in extremis by Emmanuel Macron last summer. It is therefore mainly private vehicles (category M1) that were inspected, since they represented more than 18.239 million checks! With an average age that stabilizes at a high level: 12.2 years, against 12.9 years for light utility vehicles, a figure slightly down, and 46.2 years for collection models.
Marginal critical failures
These results are rather in line with the aging of the French car fleet, which is increasingly focused on second-hand cars to the detriment of new ones. But the assessment drawn up by UTAC’s Central Technical Organization (OTC) encourages us not to overshadow the picture. Despite this situation, many indicators have indeed improved. If only 10.71% of the checks on passenger vehicles were totally blank, this is already better than the 10.39% recorded in 2020. In more than 45% of cases, it is an incorrect adjustment of the front fog lamps which prevented faultless!
Always very variable from one department to another, the counter-visit prescription rate drops from 20.78% to 19.47% on average, of which only 0.70% for critical failures. Remember that the arrival of the latter had raised a lot of concerns during the 2018 reform because they require the vehicle to be repaired the same day or to be immobilized. It is clear that they remain fortunately marginal. The results of light commercial vehicles are slightly worse than those of passenger vehicles, but also remain better than in 2020.
The main reasons for counter-visit
We are therefore far from the image of an increasingly dilapidated park that some like to set up. But it would have been easy to do better thanks to fairly simple maintenance operations to carry out. The ” axles, wheels, tires and suspensions” remain the main cause of counter-visits: 3% of them are linked in particular to “ tires that are badly damaged, nicked or incorrectly fitted ” and 2.19% at a ” wear indicator reached ” rubbers. Just behind, we find the lights, electrical devices and equipment » .
It is even in this category that we find the most common reason for counter-visit, ” the orientation of a passing lamp outside the limits prescribed by the requirements » . Finally, the “ nuisance , which include all pollution concerns, are in third place. With, here, a less good performance for diesel vehicles, of which 3.15% were recalibrated for “ opacity exceeding the received value or instability of opacity measurements “. Note, however, that diesel-powered models have had to deal with stricter control on this point since 2019 and that they still represent more than 2/3 of center visits, compared to barely 32% for petrol and around 1% for other energies: hybrid, electric, LPG, E85, etc.
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The main critical failures
The main critical failure concerns, once again, the tyres: 0.21% of the vehicles presented themselves for the examination while their rubbers were “on the rope” or damaged! Effectiveness of less than 50% of the parking brake’s limit value is in second place here, quite a distance behind. As for the non-functioning of the brake lights, it shares the third step of the podium with the excessive wear of the lining of the drums or the brake pads, going as far as the disappearance of the minimum mark. If you have to pass your technical control soon, remember to check the condition of your tyres, the operation of your various lights and the wear of your brakes as a priority. A reflex which should also become regular, if it is not already, as these parts of your car are so precious for your safety as for that of others.
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