How to Obtain a Vehicle Inspection Certificate in Saudi Arabia?

INTRODUCTION

This blog is the guide for those expatriates who have to visit one of the centers in their Saudi city of residence where MVPI (Motor Vehicle Periodic Inspection) is done to obtain the Vehicle Inspection Certificate. If you have never been to the center and there is no help to guide you on how to obtain the certificate from this place, then this blog will assist you and may respond to many of your doubts and questions.

Let me first break this mountain of overthinking from you that it doesn’t matter who owns your car? You or your dealer from whom you bought the car but the transfer of ownership is yet to be done. Because MVPI or shall I say the Arabic word, Fahas (the most commonly used term for this work that means ‘Inspection’) is done to obtain the Vehicle Inspection Certificate (another name is Inspection Report which is called ‘Taqreer Fahas’ in Arabic) which is one of the major requirements to transfer the ownership of your vehicle to your name.

CORE REQUIREMENT 

The most important document that you must have to show at the MVPI center is neither your Iqama nor your Driving License, it is your Vehicle Registration (VR) card which is called Rukhsa Seer in Arabic. Why? Because your iqama and driving license are individual whereas VR card is about the vehicle that needs to be inspected and passed.

Let me break another mountain of your catastrophic doubt because many of us overthink if we may get refuse to send our car to the inspection station for the inspection only because we do not have the original card of the Vehicle Registration. The straight answer is NO, you still can take your car with the copy of VR. Even if it is expired for YEARS, they will still accept your car for inspection.

If you bought a car on installments and that period of paying installments or shall I say that the contract between the two parties is over, and to further expand the scenario if years have passed in the expiry of that contract, guess what? You still can visit the center and show the VR copy. Workers in the fahas center don’t care about your vehicle story. All they want is to inspect your car and complete the proceedings by simply handing you a passing/failing certificate.

EXPATS WITH LANGUAGE PROBLEM

Is language the issue if you are weak in Arabic? The first thing is that there is simply no need for discussion unless you ask for it. Once the car enters the station and your turn comes for inspection, two different workers sit, drive and inspect your car and return you back. THAT’S IT!

They do not interrogate you about the body of your car if it is original or second-hand. No, they do not ask you anything but the VR and the ticket you get from the box. Confused? Let’s begin by driving my car to the main gate of the MVPI center.

SHOULD YOU GO TO REPAIR YOUR VEHICLE ISSUES BEFORE VISITING THE CENTER?

To transfer the vehicle ownership to my name, I simply decided to just visit the place instead of checking a mechanic, technician, or electrician first for any kind of vehicle issues. Because;

1. There is every chance that some of the car issues probably have nothing to do with the inspection so just save the money.
2. And maybe you fix the inspection-related problems with your car and STILL, the inspector discovers a problem to fail you.

PURSUIT OF FAHAS

My iqama and driving license is valid but I had a VR copy that was expired for at least 4 years. I own Hyundai Veloster 2014 and driving for the past eight years but just a month ago, I visited the MVPI center for the first time. MVPI centers open early at 7am and closes at night by 11pm. I think the best possible time to reach and expect the least number of cars is between 12pm and 3pm.

A long queue after the entrance that takes you towards the box where you get the ticket.

At the gate, the security guard asked about the Tawakkalna screen. Once I showed the app, the guard let me entered and I drove my car towards a route where the management has prepared different lines and queues to drive in and wait for your turn to reach the box.

The worker in the box gives you this detailed ticket that you will show to the inspector along with your VR card/copy.

The box is installed where you get the ticket to show the inspector inside the station. At the box, I was asked about my VR so I gave him the copy and he checked. Then he returned the copy and demanded to me to pay the charge of the inspection. So I paid 84 riyals as my car is categorized as a ‘Passenger Car’. If I fail, I will have to pay 28 riyals at the box to get the ticket.

The price chart that shows the category of your car and the inspection charges both the first time (top) and the second time (bottom).

You do not need to worry about how much will this fahas work cost you. Look at the chart above and know what category is your car. The chart on the top has four numerical columns. Most of us have passenger cars. So according to the first column after the category, you have to pay 73 riyals. The follow-up columns indicate VAT % and the amount adding to the original amount. So you have to pay 84 riyals. The chart on the bottom with the same detailing and a lesser amount is for those who are here for re-inspection.

So I got the ticket and stood in one of the queues heading toward a large hangar-style building where there are at least four stations for the inspection. They do not continue to work during prayer times and close the gates.

Once my turn came inside the station, one inspector demanded the ticket and my VR. I showed him and then he asked me to leave the car to him and stand in the waiting area that is situated at the corner of the building.

At the waiting area, I made pictures and videos of the inspection but I was stopped by the inspector with a warning. Maybe he was not comfortable with it but if you check this place on Google Maps, you will notice scores of pictures and videos.

The car was handed over to two different inspectors and they thoroughly inspected and analyzed it. The brakes and headlights were checked and were also analyzed on the sideslip tester.

After both the inspectors were done inspecting my car, the car was given back to me and asked to stop at the final box where I get either a passing or a failing certificate. If you are a first-timer, make your mind because this is totally normal, they will fail you. This happens most of the time.

When you reach your car to the last station and no one shows up to fix the sticker on the glass, it is understood that you have failed the test. So I just reached the final box and collected my failing certificate. No further charges were asked to pay. You only pay at the first box for the ticket.

My detailed Failing Certificate.

This small stapled piece lists the failed items that need to be repaired/fixed asap.

The passing/failing certificate (or inspection report) is a computerized document with strict details and readings about your car inspection results. Why do they provide you a failing certificate? It is not a sign of discouragement but a favor to show the car to a mechanic, technician, or whoever deals in those errors to repair/fix.

Once I was handed over my failing certificate, that meant that I leave the center and visit any of my contacts to show the certificate and fix the issues. If you have no contacts, you simply leave from the exit gate and you will discover a few people in nearby places checking and coming towards you to check the errors written on the page. Here, it is up to you how you deal with this business of yours. It is always better to take advice from your friends who have knowledge in vehicle matters and have potential contacts to refer.

Remember! You must fix your car issues and return for re-inspection WITHIN TWO WEEKS. If you don’t, you have to repeat from the scratch with the same charge demanded at the box with a complete inspection. The best part of re-inspection asap is that the inspector at the station analyzes only the failing items of the certificate.

SECOND ATTEMPT (RE-INSPECTION)

When my car had all its issues fixed, I returned in 48 hours for re-inspection with my last ticket and the failing certificate. Same procedure. Reached the same box but this time, I showed my failed certificate with the previous ticket stapled with it. 28 riyals were demanded instead of 84.

With the new ticket, I stood in the queue and waited for my turn. Inside the station, the inspector approached me and I handed over to him my ticket and the failed certificate. It took comparatively lesser time in the inspection.

At the final station, I noticed a worker with a sticker reaching to my car and then he fixed it on the right top of the windshield. That was the relief point. I reached the final box and received my passing certificate and left the center.

Remember, if you have bought a brand new car, visiting the MVPI center becomes compulsory after three years of the contract signing. For example, if you buy a brand new car on the 25th of September 2021, you have to do fahas after the 25th of September 2024.

Fahas is valid for one year so maintain your car and do fahas immediately after the date expires because if the traffic police find your car with the expired sticker, you will be fined 150 riyals that are around double of what you pay for the first time at MVPI with a passenger car.

You can share your fahasperience in the comments section below or ask if you do not understand any of my detail. I wish the readers good luck with their vehicles.

My Passing Certificate

My car Fahassified

I AM SAMI NAIK

My Selfish Diary: A Starving Patience

(Yawnnnnnnnn)

Je me baladais sur l’avenue
Le coeur ouvert à l’inconnu
J’avais envie de dire bonjour
À n’importe qui
N’importe qui ce fut toi
Je t’ai dit n’importe quoi
Il suffisait de te parler
Pour t’apprivoiser – [Joe Dassin – Champs Elysées (1969)]

(Yawnnnnnnnn)

11.30 am Thursday…
Date unknown…

Thursday is half day… mmm full day…
Half asleep and full snoring…

Itching my ass and dust on my bed…
A rumbling routine and mumbling routine…

Sumbuddy aching my ears to WAKE UP!!!! Ahhh it is not my harlot in scarlet, it is our confound abba (father) in twilight. Now what??? yeah prayer time… so lets pray and worship Facebook…

I am the face of book on hat-trick to get blocked for past few years. I am one of the profiles who receive boring notifications but fold my legs on the sofa when receive a message in inbox. What is inside???? Nothing… it was just a fucking 8-ball pool game invitation!!!!

Good morning Jeddah. My beloved city where I was born, where I was raised from boyhood to adulthood. The food and sea of this city is the pride specialty. 

Mornings and Evenings, I walk the lines in awakenings…. in city of happenings…. driving in the shelter of persuasion and embracement that the automobiles will be at peace but not piece… but tragically it is tantalizingly a no-holds-barred match at every space of road…

Every vehicle in Jeddah is experimented not with the driver’s capacity of capable driving but overcoming the feasibility of meeting the ditches in the road. I am a proud citizen to be one of many who encounter and flounder.

Hail the morning of Jeddah. My city is half-awake till call of prayer for Zuhr. The cars parked are washed with the washer half-asleep. Breakfasts are done for hours with no fixed timings. Building constructions are performed by unskilled labors. 

Traffic are jammed, minor vehicle-hit accidents have made the roads congested. Cafeterias are noisy of orders and frying eggs but salons and stationary are dull. Banks are crowded and govt offices carry long stinky queues. Translation offices have problems in their scanners and printers. Nurses in medical institutions are coming on time and patients are long waiting for the arrival of doctors. 

Educational sites are over-crowded with every size of life-appetizers and transports whereas industrial areas suffer more of heavy trucks, breaking the traffic signals and bounding the other vehicles to cross any side resulting into hours long traffic jam. Malls in morning are bunk places and malls in evening are over-crowded with more walks and talks, entering the shops, gimmicking the individuality, asking the prices and walking away.

In well-popularized malls, morning witnesses many foreign customers than evenings. Most of the flock of feminine are famines in self-presentation, very cosmetic-bluffed, powdered more than a clown, eyebrows furnished like Groucho Marx and contesting their slimness with the hockey stick or HB pencil.

As a customer, they are worst than the Chinese. Few of them don’t even know to whether pull or push the door of boutique outlet. As the trip ends and comes out of mall, their outside world is more cruel with the reception of world’s most cheapest wannabe boyfriends and freshy bunkers/bonkers. Oh world!!!! where are you moving towards????

A city/country with tremendous potential and source, but outspoken when it cannot meet the criteria of world’s social and moral customs. Within the binding of living culture lies a stinky ego in the alfresco. Ex-pets and local-pets are fragmented/tormented to each other by abiding the rules & laws, which are sometimes confused with religion, sometimes barred with gender-mixing and sometimes unjustified with social life and employments.

When I take a look at history of human civilization, making of warriors and empires, rising of arm forces; I come to realize and make my firm belief that there are only and only 2 ways when the greatest nations in the world are build;
1. Either by ruling over the others or
2. By building the empire/nation on your own.

What part are we, what land are we?
What soil we fertile, why curse we missile?
What proud are we, then why hopeless are we?

May we all realize and correct our mistakes, admit our sins and ask for repentance, sustain and maintain with words of wisdom under the guidance and protection of Allah.. Ameen.

May my prays and wishes come true, but that is a further stage, what about now. We suffer the duffer and praise the bluffer. The animals exemplify how human they are, we tend to qualify how animal we are. The brothers fight under plight and we smell more nonsense when we realize their bizarre reasons, is that what we live to listen for?

The world we are living is the place where your newspapers are absolute lawyers of liars and social networking websites are truth-speakers. The world we are breathing is the place where the educators and thinkers (influenced to many millions of viewers, listeners and readers) are non-believers to the existence of Allah but the poorest and the beggar of His blessing is the most religious and faithful to Allah. Just take a moment and think about it!

We bullshit the utter nonsense that science and technology has exceeded the limit of serving humanity and easing/comforting the life. Really?? Then why we suffer more diseases than before?? Why the young generation has become more frustrated than before?? Why people are complaining more of heart diseases, increase of sugar level or blood pressure than before?? If condoms are the gateway of safe sexual intercourse, then why are there more cases of HIV than before? Don’t irritate, just think about it!

With time goes by, our minds are controlled with the installment and persistence of fixed jurisdiction throughout the world. We are bound to think to the limit, not crossing the limit and thinking beyond. This is the soup in the bowl, this is bread in the plate, now have your meal. We are the most common creatures to accept what is said and done. We confess what the majority decides and declare a person either he is truth-speaker or a liar, a leader or deceiver.

When we come to the conclusions after summing all the united states of confusions and distortion, everything goes messed and wrong. Clashes between different schools of thought begin, historic sites are put on demolition, peace is pieced by unrest strikes and violence of riots, oil prices increase, demand in stock decrease, frustrations of gentlemen makes them genitalmen, children read guns and shoot books, animal cruelty is enjoyed, places of worship become favorite spot of terrorism, clapping hands become a sign of celebration, playing foul games and illegal affairs with opposite sex count in resume of honor, history becomes boring and adult movies become interesting, ancestors are your demons and girlfriends are your angels….

Just a month ago, Economist Intelligence Unit’s Worldwide Cost of Living survey placed Jeddah, the 9th most cheapest city in the world. Are you kidding me??? Life is getting expensive, food is getting expensive, even the cost of breathing or living is getting way expensive than ever. I lived my first 20 years of life in a 4-room flat which cost us 12,000 SAR a year as rent from 1984-2004. To this year 2014, we have changed our residence thrice with an extraordinary rise of 9,000 SAR a year. Bring this economically ill statistician to me, so I can interrogate his qualifications with ease.

Like I said above that “The brothers fight under plight and we smell more nonsense when we realize their bizarre reasons”. The owner of the building we reside had a years-long running dispute over property with his brothers. The case is now subjugated and won by one of brothers who was hungry of snatching the whole property from them. And as result, the court has short-noticed to evacuate the building within 10 days. I repeat, within 10 days!!! Can you just imagine and calculate the sudden rise of mountains on the heads of all living/existing tenants?? The brothers were fighting for property but we are the one losing the shelter and facing the sun heat. So is it really easy to look for your new home, shift your belongings and migrate to a new home sweet home within 10 fucking days???? With me, my fellow neighbors have also experiencing painful situation. May we all tenants overcome the situation, get new homes which bring blessings to us and our families Ameen.

Sometimes the burden of chastise is shouldered by the salted amount of foul hands which sweats the half-wit bullied-wicked game to demoralize you. Not every local is cruel or a hunter-man. But lack of education and early fragrance of money and power to rule (not lead) put most of the locals in immortality and make the non-locals feel as frantic. People responsible for the welfare of this country should adopt measures to ease both locals and non-locals, so they can serve and make their own life and also of their family and kinsmen here.

Turning back to my life, I keep myself low-profile. Besides my work, I am a globetrotter, I like traveling with few of my fellow globetrotters and enjoy lifetime experience of visiting amazing sites in Saudi Arabia. Of course there is a temporary break now. I walk the work and decide what to do, eat what I want as food prepared at home or outside with friends, download and watch the movie I want, read the book I want. (Comfort yourself, overcome the complicated situations) When I drive my car, I keep my ears unnoticed of possible sounds of horns to enter my eardrums by playing the songs on my mobile connected by blue-tooth to my car because I don’t want my ears to listen traffic noises. Every month, I am notified on my mobile that I violated the traffic rules by over-speeding. Fine! I pay and I don’t cry.

Like hundreds of time, myself and driver of other vehicle come to terms to cross a road or street, I indicate him by hand to go first. Reply! he raise his palm of gratitude. Scores of time also, the pedestrians walk in front of my running car and begin losing the edge whether to move or back up, I point them to forward your steps. Reply! they smile and raise their palm and run.

Why am I speaking/telling what the fuck do I do? You don’t give a damn innit? But just notice my last 2 paragraphs, isn’t there something you find you don’t behave like me? Are you still at ease in your life? With all my miseries I personally and emotionally have suffered in my life, I adopt my own measures to live my life freely. Imagine if you are working with your own decisions; eating watching drinking reading listening whatever you want to; paying your installments, fines, penalties without panicking for no good reason, like how many tensions you overcome and breathe your life.

What if you really give the fellow driver a chance to drive the road first, what if you let the pedestrian cross the street before you race. You are on your own benefit of what you did for yourself and your life. Simply the angel on your right shoulder write good notes about you and mark your safety for right-doings. What if I tell you to get attracted from the beauty of a girl/woman crossing from your sight but do wish her that she get a loving and caring husband? I know this will sound funny, but trust me its magic.

I dream and imagine that I live in my own mansion near the sea shores, no greed of money and power but blossom of happiness and merriness. Sounds of sea waves fell high on my ears, seagulls caws and squawks. Listen the soul refreshing songs which I loved the most. The girl to whom I have loved the most join me in my prime. And I enjoy a joyous wonderful cold weather and spend a wonderful moment of life with her.

Ahh that feeling!!!! Einstein was right… “Imagination is more important than knowledge”.

You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us, And the world will live as one

 

                                                                     I AM SAMI NAIK

 

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