A recent study reveals the significant price differences practiced in technical inspection centers. A French department is particularly expensive.
If French motorists are not all equal when it comes to the price of fuel, the same thing can be said about technical inspections. As with the prices at the gas station, the prices are not at all the same depending on whether you live in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux or Lille. A recent study by the comparator Simplauto.com on the prices charged by the various approved technical inspection centers – nearly 6,800 in France – reveals a very large disparity depending on the regions and departments. For a thorough check of the main elements of a vehicle, most often for approximately half an hour, the price to pay can go from simple to double and even more!
If today many approved centers offer discounts, sometimes even depending on the day or time you drop off your car, there are certain checkpoints where the bill is particularly high. This is particularly the case in Haute-Savoie, the French department where the price of a technical inspection is the highest. If you live in and around Annecy, having your car checked costs on average 100 euros! It’s expensive, and the bill can even climb up to 120 euros in certain centers, again according to the study carried out by the Simplauto.com site.
Conversely, it is still possible to have your vehicle checked for less than 50 euros. This is for example the case in Moselle where motorists can pay “only” 49 euros to have their vehicle checked. This is 71 euros less than in the most expensive center in Haute-Savoie. In this department in eastern France, around Metz, the average price is 69 euros, the lowest in the country. With such disparities between regions and even within departments – it may be interesting to drive a few kilometers more to find more attractive prices.
In four years, the average price of technical inspection has increased by 2.4%, which is relatively little considering the general increase in prices in France. If this remains an additional expense when you own a vehicle, the law stipulates that it is obligatory to drive a car marked with the sticker stipulating that it has passed the technical inspection. Driving a vehicle without a valid technical inspection is an offense under the Highway Code which costs 135 euros (90 if you pay within 3 days).
The technical inspection is a mandatory regular inspection to check whether the vehicle complies with current safety and emissions standards. This process is designed to ensure that vehicles on the roads are in good working order, contributing to road safety and environmental protection. The brakes, steering, suspension, tires and lighting in particular are checked to find out whether or not the vehicle is fit to be driven. The technical inspection must be carried out four years after the purchase of a new vehicle then every two years.