Track Car MOT - airbag removal & other

[Rob J]

Hello,

I am converting an E90 330i into a track car

Until recently I was planning to remove the airbags (all 6 - driver, passenger and one in each of the roof pillars)

However, to my great surprise I read in the MOT handbook that removal of any OEM airbags is classed as an MOT 'major' and therefore an immediate fail

There must be many, many road legal track cars that have after market steering wheels & removed OEM airbags that have a valid MOT

Can anyone advise here - is it down to MOT tester discresion (i.e. if clearly a track car with bucket seats, harnesses, cage etc.) then this will be overlooked??

All your help is appreciated (I live in Germany with a UK registered track car so need to return to the UK for an MOT - I need to be as certain as possible that I will pass MOT before making the trip to avoid the logistics nighmare that failing would cause!)

Any other advice on getting a track car MOT'd would be very welcome

Cheers!

[warch]

https://mattersoftesting.blog.gov.uk/when-is-a-mod...

There is apparently an exemption for things like rally cars which must be road legal but which often lack things like airbags or anti lock brakes. Perhaps you could get your car classified as a rally car. The main thing is that it must clearly be used primarily as something other than a road car, which from sounds of it yours is. Good luck!

[anonymous-user]

Tester's discretion - a car that's clearly modified for track use and which is primarily driven on the road to and from track events of one sort or another should be fine.

Someone who's decided a non-airbag steering wheel would be great on their daily because it looks wikkkkid - bit buggered unless they've got an extremely sympathetic MoT tester.

[E-bmw]

I have only just over a year ago sold an e36 with no dash, no internal trim & non-standard wheel that quite clearly has no airbags but as I used the 2.2 ohm trick the warning light did what it was supposed to & never did my mot tester even ask.

[Maty]

My R53 Mini has just passed its MoT with an aftermarket race steering wheel (no airbag), bucket seats, harnesses etc. The guy who tested it said exactly as above, due to the fact it is very rarely driven on the road (mileage between this MoT and the last proves this) he was ok with the steering wheel and lack of airbag.