No more minor defects: From the 20th, the ITV is either passed or failed; these are the main changes

That’s it. The ITV is either passed or failed. There will no longer be minor defects that let you drive while you get your car fixed. From this coming May 20th, the new ITV regulation takes effect, established by Royal Decree by the Government to bring Spanish regulations in line with European ones and meet the requirements and changes introduced across the EU territory in inspection procedures, diagnostic equipment, training of the personnel who carry out inspections, and the facilities that perform the tests themselves.

You no longer need to wait for the date indicated on your vehicle’s technical inspection card. Under the new regulation, you can attend up to 20 days before that date to have the tests done. That said, no matter how early you go for the inspection, the deadline for the next one will remain the same, since the next inspection date will be four years after the date shown on the card.

Another change is that after a vehicle is rejected in the first inspection, there is no longer an obligation to repeat it at the same station. Instead, we can go to any other station to try to pass again, as long as we have the report and the details of the defects found on the vehicle that prevented it from passing. The certificate will also be equally valid if the car was bought abroad, which simplifies the registration process for imported vehicles.

The next change affects the vehicle insurance check. From now on, it will be necessary to show that the car has at least the mandatory insurance in place for all types of inspections, both ordinary and extraordinary. And in the outcome of all of them, the “favorable with minor defects” result will disappear. From now on, the ITV is either passed or failed, with no half measures. Either everything is correct, or you must return to the workshop to verify that it is.

As for historic vehicles, the age requirement for granting a historic registration plate will now be 30 years (previously 25) from the manufacture or first registration of the vehicle.

On another note, the ITV stations will continue to record the vehicle’s mileage and register it. The aim is to prevent mileage fraud as much as possible by tampering with odometers, and to try to prevent cars that are clearly out of service from going unnoticed.

Through the now mandatory OBD reading devices (on-board diagnostic system), ITV stations will be able to check only the operation of emissions control systems. This measure of the regulation will not take effect until next September, in order to comply with the implementation protocol for the new European WLTP emissions control regulation, which will apply to all passenger cars and light commercial vehicles manufactured from 2006 onward.

The new regulation also requires stations to improve the qualifications of their inspectors — they must hold a Técnico Superior de Automoción title — and it relaxes the requirements under which rent-a-car vehicles had to pass their first inspection after two years, so they will now follow the same schedule as everyone else, starting at four years. The good condition of rental vehicles and the low number of withdrawals and incidents that the rental-car fleet shows in the results.