A garage booking system for MOT work only helps if the calendar knows which bay can do which job and how long each one takes. When the phone rings constantly, every call pulls a technician away from a car. A form offering a slot every half hour that ignores your bays just moves the chaos from the phone to your website.
This guide covers a separate pool for the MOT bay, realistic job times, protected test slots on busy days, extra dates for peak weeks, vehicle details and a confirmation that says what to bring. The garage in the examples is fictional, and the minutes are assumptions to replace with your own timings.
Count your bays and job times before you publish slots
The customer picks a time, but you are really selling time on a bay with a qualified person next to it. Before opening bookings, list the jobs you take online and time each one from the car rolling in to the bay being free again. An MOT runs in the MOT bay, while a service ties up a workshop lift far longer, and a diagnosis can overrun.
Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.
| Offer | Job time | Buffer | Bay pool |
|---|---|---|---|
| MOT test | 45 min | 15 min after the job | MOT bay |
| Interim service | 90 min | 15 min after the job | Workshop lifts |
| Full service | 180 min | 15 min before the job for parts and paperwork | Workshop lifts |
| Diagnosis: warning light, noise, vibration | 60 min | 15 min after the job | Workshop lifts, manual approval |
Each row should be its own offer, because duration belongs to the offer. One "Car service" listing with price variants would block the same time for a 45-minute test and a three-hour service. The guide to car detailing bookings covers the same trap.
Treat your lifts as one shared pool, not a calendar per service
If you have three workshop lifts, three offers that use them do not add up to nine. Every job on those lifts should draw from one pool, so an interim service at 9:00 and a diagnosis at 9:15 cannot land on the same lift. The guide to avoiding double bookings explains how to test competing offers.
Use buffers for time the customer never sees: road test, job card, moving the car out. Add a buffer before a full service if parts must be picked. Enter phone bookings in the same calendar during the call, or the form will show a lift that has already gone.
UK dealer software provider Dragon2000 describes MOT bays as separately configured resources, each with its own working days and the time slots its testers are available. That is another vendor's product, not a description of Meetlead, and it does not say how many bays your garage needs. Dragon2000: MOT Scheduler.
Protect a fixed number of MOT slots on busy days
On a busy day, a couple of long repairs can swallow the capacity you meant for quick tests. Split the workshop instead: the MOT bay for tests, the lifts for servicing and diagnosis. Each group is a separate pool with its own number of units, so longer work can never take an MOT slot.
- Split the workshop into two pools.Fictional Westside Motors has one MOT bay and three lifts. The MOT pool has a capacity of one, and the servicing pool has a capacity of three.
- Match the start interval to the occupied time.An MOT takes 45 minutes plus a 15-minute buffer, so starting every 60 minutes in an 8:00 to 16:00 window gives eight tests a day. The last start is at 15:00.
- Give diagnosis a morning window only.Offer diagnosis between, say, 8:00 and 11:00, and full services only with early starts. If a job overruns, it will not push the afternoon interim services off the lifts.
- Test the pool at full capacity.Book a trial MOT at 10:00 and check that nobody else can see that time. An interim service at 10:00 should still be available, because it uses a different pool.
Start interval and job duration are two different numbers; the guide to booking slot intervals separates them. The figures above are assumptions, so time the first busy days and adjust your offers before opening further weeks.
Add busy weeks as calendar exceptions
A busy spell lasts a few weeks, so do not rewrite your weekly schedule for it. Add longer hours or an open Saturday as exceptions for specific dates in every offer they affect. An exception replaces the hours for the whole day, so enter the full window. The guide to booking calendar exceptions covers the pitfalls.
Set the booking horizon so customers can see far enough ahead, and add a minimum notice period for full services if parts need ordering the day before. Exceptions only apply on the dates you entered, so nothing needs cleaning up afterwards.
GOV.UK states that a vehicle needs its first MOT by the third anniversary of its registration, notes that Northern Ireland has different rules, and says that you can get an MOT "up to a month (minus a day) before it runs out" and keep the same renewal date. The page sets out rules for drivers; it says nothing about how a garage should split its capacity, and this guide is not legal advice. GOV.UK: Getting an MOT.
Collect the vehicle details before the car arrives
The registration number, mileage and a short description of the car let you prepare the bay and the job card. In Meetlead Bookings the form has fixed fields: name, email, phone, company and notes, each hidden, optional or required. There is no registration field, so make notes required and say in the offer description what to enter.
- Registration number, so you can pull up the vehicle and its job history.
- Current mileage, if you record it on the job card or service book.
- Make and model, plus tyre size if the job includes tyres.
- Any warning lights or symptoms the driver has noticed.
Make the phone number required, because on a busy day a quick call beats an email. Do not ask for details you will not use: every extra line lengthens the form for someone booking on their phone.
Approve jobs that need diagnosis by hand
A warning light, a knock or a vibration at speed has no known duration. For these, create a separate offer with manual approval: the customer requests a time, and the garage confirms it after a short call or suggests another. Set a decision deadline so requests do not sit unanswered; the guide to manual booking approval covers ownership.
A routine MOT needs no manual check if pools and times are right, so keep automatic confirmation for work whose duration you know. Updating the customer once the car is in the workshop is covered in the guide to repair status updates.
A confirmation that says what to bring
The message after booking should say whether this is a request or a confirmed slot, and answer what the customer would otherwise ring about: where to park, what to bring, how long it takes and how to change the time. A Meetlead offer shows its location and a what-to-bring list, and you write email templates for request received, confirmed, rejected, cancelled and expired.
Hello, your MOT is confirmed for Thursday at 10:00 at Westside Motors, 1 Example Road, entrance at the rear. Please bring the car with the locking wheel nut key inside. The test takes about 45 minutes, and payment is made at the garage afterwards. If the car needs repairs, we will call you before doing any work. To change or cancel, please phone the garage.
More examples are in the guide to booking confirmation messages. In Meetlead Bookings you set up shared pools, job times and buffers, multi-window schedules, exceptions, manual or automatic approval and phone bookings entered by hand. Prices on offers are informational: no payments or deposits are taken, and customers cancel by contacting the garage. The app is part of the Growth and Scale plans.
Questions about garage bookings
Do regular customers who phone have to book online? No. Enter their booking by hand in the panel so it takes the same bay as one from the form. The guide on why regular customers still call explains how to move them over gradually.
What if a customer books an MOT but needs a repair first? Call before the visit, enter a diagnosis slot by hand and cancel the original booking. Do not quietly stretch the MOT appointment and take time from the next car in the bay. Sharpen the offer descriptions so the difference is clear before anyone books.
