Few weeks back the car went through a regular road legality inspection. It’s a procedure every vehicle older than four years has to pass. It repeats every two years. I guess every country has something similar. In Czech, it’s known as the “STK”.

During the process, the car has to – as step one – pass emission/pollution test to see, whether the exhaust and catalytic converters are OK. Once passed, then the car proceeds to the second step – to the main station, where series of throughout tests follows. Brakes, suspension, all lights, horn, all important parts and overall status of the car. For instance – anything non-standard or without a road legal certificate or homologation paper will prevent the car from passing. Typically different wheels than listed in the car specs ID, exhaust without TÜV/ECE homologation, non-OEM suspension parts, auxiliary lights, LED bars etc. This all takes around 2 hours.

If the car is OK or has some small, non-dangering flaws, it’s road legal for another two years. If not, you can either fix those serious or dangerous issues found and listed in the protocol, or ditch the car. Depends on the severity of the fault and your possibilities.

Feels great to say the M5 passed the checks with no issues at all. Solid as a rock. The only error listed in the “minor fault” section is an administrative hiccup made by some clerk 15 years ago. Because the weight and production data label in the car shows something, whereas the car ID shows something else. It’s only a difference in one number, however they had to take note of that. And there is no way of fixing, unless I’d go through administrative hell, getting basically all papers re-done. Not going to do that, really.