Nardi steering wheel swap
 

I am collecting bits towards my build and was looking at a nice Nardi wheel on ebay. My friend who is a traffic cop warned me that it may not pass an MOT because of the change in MOT rules this year. First i have heard of it european directive he said.
Have copied text below from AA website as they had feature on it. Have any of you MOT'd your cars yet, half the MX5 's in the world will fail.



MOT test for cars
New mandatory test items from 2012
The Department for Transport is adding a number of new mandatory test items to the annual MOT from 1 January 2012 to comply with a revised European testing directive.

Supplementary restraints
The vehicle will fail the test if any airbag fitted as original equipment is obviously missing or defective.

I will check with my MOT tester on Monday. I think the words to look at here are "obviously missing", if there is a gap in the centre of your steering wheel or dashboard where they have been removed or there is a warning light showing on the dash, I think you would fail. If you have replaced the steering wheel with a wooden Nardi 3 spoke wheel I can't see how the tester can know that it wasn't an optional Mazda Dealer fitting.

I have just junked the complete interior of my own Mk2, airbags, dash, the lot!

I will let you know.

I agree with you, obviously need my Nardi wheel but think I will hang on to old wheel just in case. All cars manufactured after 1998 had to have bags .There are quite a few items added to the mot , if you search on mot changes 2012 you will find loads of discussion on it. I hate living in a nanny state.

When the MOT tester logs on to the system he is supplied on screen data for that vehicle.
. If it includes data for an airbag you have to have it. If not it is up to ti the discretion of the tester. If no evidence of an airbag, ie another wheel, then no problem. I suggesting MOT ing your car now, and asking to see the data so you know what you can remove!