How to: Get your car's fitness certified

The fitness certificate is one of the documents, along with the motor vehicle registration and insurance certificate, that is needed to verify to the police that an individual has the right to be driving. New drivers are sometimes unaware of the process involved in getting a fitness certificate for their car. Here are some guidelines:

1. The fitness certificate expires every 14 months for private vehicles, while for public passenger vehicles (PPV) and carriage vehicles, it expires after six months The process of renewing it is twofold. You go to the tax office in your area with your driver's licence and the expired fitness certificate to pay the fitness fee. The cost is $1,500 for private motor vehicles.

2. Having made the payment, take the vehicle to the examination depot to have it evaluated and for a certificate of fitness to be issued. If no faults are found, a new motor vehicle fitness certificate will be issued at this point. The overall length of the examination is about 20 minutes.

3. If faults are found with the vehicle at any point, no new certificate will be issued. A notation, however, will be made on the back of the old fitness certificate, and you will be asked to get the problem rectified at your mechanic, or in the case of front-end problems, an alignment and balancing stand, before a new one can be issued.

4. It is recommended that you take the car for the fitness examination before the actual expiry date in case any mechanical problems occur. In addition, the car can be checked up to a month before your appointment date, which is the date of expiry on the old certificate.