Bringing my car to the examination centre in Port-Louis (fitness)
June 23, 2015
Last week was the sixth time I was at car fitness in Port-Louis and it was chaotic at a time where it usually is more smooth. That is 13:30. The new premises still haven’t opened and I wonder when… There is less parking space, and the number of cars required to go the fitness centre is increasing every year.
Bringing your car to the examination centre in Port-Louis (fitness) for getting it checked is something which will not particularly fall on the things I like doing in my todos list. I am sure no one likes to go there. I believe the reason we all hate going there is the waiting time associated with it and the chaotic ways you have to go through with your car in a mess of other cars until you are through. You have to park your cars two times, and if you hate that, welcome to stress. I find it worse than a traffic jam the moment at the examination centre.
Even a day before going there, it’s like a nightmare! And when you are done with it, belle soulagement!
My article is not necessarily a step by step guide on how to get your car fitness done the most efficient way. I will share with you my story and you are welcome to share yours at the comments section at the end of this article. I will also add some useful links at the bottom.
It does say in the motor examination fees that you can have your vehicle examined at your house! I have never taken notion of this option and I wonder if you have tried it yet!? “Examination of any type of vehicle at owner’s premises
Rs. 600”. When I bring my car it costs Rs.400. I bring along my horse power (document) and my insurance certificate.
The first time I had to go to the car fitness centre, I went very early, around 7am I was there. So I was first in the queue. But guess what, it means you wait really long! Total time it took to be through was 3.5 hours! I think they open at 9am and they close at 15:00.
If you go early you will definitely wait a lot and the queue is huge!
Fixing the appointment
To fix the appointment I do it on phone. You can get the phone number on the page that I will link below. I usually call them 1-2 weeks before. But now considering that there are more and more cars taking up appointments, try to make your appointment earlier, that is call a month before. You can only pass through the examination centre with your car if you have an appointment. Everyday they handle a fixed amount of cars to which they have given appointments. It’s around +300 cars.
You can bring your car there at any time while they are open. In the morning there are more people and usually afternoon there are less. But this year, 2015, when I went there at 13:00 it was still full, and very busy and difficult to find a place to put the car. So next year I will go at 13:45. And I hope the new centre will be open!
Chaos Parking
When you arrive at the examination centre and if its busy, you will already see queues of cars waiting to get into the centre, while others are driving around to find a parking. When I went last week I just placed my car behind the queue in most last position right shortly when you turn left when you come from Plaine Lausan, so I wasn’t blocking the road but parked kind of in one lane because next it was already full. The next time what I will do I will as soon as I see an empty spot even before turning left just place my car there.
Pay the fees
Once you have parked your car, go to the centre and pay your fees. You will usually see a long queue and everybody will be very quiet and tense. If there are more than 25 people before you, that’s normal. If you want to complain and talk to someone, the moment is ideal as everybody is pretty annoyed and many will say, quand sa pou changer! Most persons are friendly, we all feel in the same boat. And some people will feel lost and ask you questions. Some people are even scared!
It is also interesting to note that 99% of the persons there are males. Last week when I was there, there was only one women. A beautiful young lady, yet, all man behaved well and didn’t stare at her or make her feel uncomfortable. To the contrary they were friendly, courteous and helpful. We are all in the same boat there. Impressive that in those kinds of moments Mauritian solidarity is strong, well we also know of it in moments of calamities that Mauritians help each other. But it should be like this also when things are going well. One nation under one roof. But I will not divert off topic now.
When it is your turn to pay, submit your horse power document and for me it was Rs.400 for the car. Then make sure that person tells you which lane to take to place your car. It’s usually 1-3. Let’s see how it will be with the new centre!
I also wondered about the lady that makes the receipts. Can you imagine what the job must be like for her to make +300 receipts all day long and allocate you your lane…
The car gets checked
Go fetch your car and place it in the queue that is waiting in the lane number you have been attributed to. Then once you are in the centre and its your turn a guy will come and look under the hood of your car. When he is done you have to drive out and park your car again. This is pretty annoying if there is still car chaos going on outside as you need to search again. Then go back to that guy who checked your car. He usually also needs your insurance certificate. When he is done filling out some forms he will hand them over to you to bring back at the front desk.
Getting your new fitness document
Bring all those documents to the front desk and hand them over. Usually for this there is also a queue waiting. Once done, move to the end of the building and wait. Now until they are done making your new car fitness certificate you have to wait a while, in a queue again. When they are done they will shout out loud your car number and hand you out the car fitness certificate. It’s done and you can drive home 🙂
Conclusion and improvement suggestions
It would be great to have a vehicle examination centre in the north of Mauritius and in other regions as well such as the West, South and East. Decentralise it.
Each vehicle examination centre should be located a bit remote and easy access from the highway.
There should be a big parking area, sufficiently big to maintain the amount of vehicles they issue appointments to.
Big trucks should have a place of their own to go. They take to much space and block the road.
Also I think it would be better to remove the examination centre from Plaine Lauzan and place it somewhere else, but anyway they have already built a new centre there. It would be good to have the centre on the outskirts in order to reduce traffic burden on Port-Louis.
We need to make Port-Louis smart as well right!?
Links:
Vehicle Examination
Addresses the following questions:
1. How to obtain an appointment for vehicle examination (fitness)
2. Which vehicles have to undergo a vehicle examination and how much does it cost?
3. Motor Vehicle Examination Fees
4. How to obtain a duplicate in case of loss of test certificate or certificate of fitness?
Ford Mustang 66, V8 sound
lol. I usually handover my keys to my uncle and tell him to get my car examined. I get to drive his BMW to work :p
That’s a nice car exchange for a day in avoiding the car fitness 🙂 What nice vintage car have you got? It’s great when you can avoid going to car fitness!!! 🙂 I will try the other option next time to see if they can come at home and check there.
I own a Toyota Allion year 2002. I had to remove the tint films from my front doors 🙁
Yeah, they will be picky on anything regarding decorations and things that are visible from the outside that has been changed/altered such as exhaust pipes and tinted glasses. How annoying that must be if you need to change something and go back there “again!” :/