New Brunswick Motor Vehicle Inspection: What Fails and Why

How does the New Brunswick motor vehicle inspection work?

Your car gets inspected at an official inspection station by an authorized inspection mechanic, and if it passes you get a sticker on the windshield showing when it runs out. Plenty of people still call it the "annual MVI", but that's out of date. Under the current provincial rules, personal passenger vehicles, family motor coaches, antique vehicles and light commercial and farm trucks with an unladen curb mass of 3,000 kg or less only need re-inspection every two years once they pass.

A brand-new vehicle sold by a dealer gets a first inspection that's good for three years. Taxis still go yearly, heavier commercial trucks go annually, and buses go twice a year. The provincial fee for a passenger vehicle inspection was $45 at the time of writing. That's the inspection only. Any repairs it turns up are separate.

One thing that's confused people this year: as of April 1, 2026, New Brunswick stopped issuing licence plate registration stickers. You still renew your registration every year, and police check it electronically. That change has nothing to do with the inspection sticker on your windshield, which is still very much required.

Moving here, or just bought a car registered in another province? An out-of-province vehicle being registered in New Brunswick gets 14 days to be inspected. Nova Scotia and PEI inspections are honoured until the expiry on their certificate, so a car with a valid Nova Scotia inspection doesn't need a new one the day it crosses at Aulac.

What does the inspection actually check?

The province lists what the inspection mechanic looks at on a passenger vehicle. It's a safety inspection, not an engine health check, so the list is mostly about whether the car can stop, steer, see and be seen.

In practice the car goes up on a hoist so the mechanic can see the brake lines, the exhaust and the suspension from underneath. Then the wheels come off or get a close look so the pads and rotors can be measured. The pass or fail calls on things like pad thickness and tire tread are made against provincial standards, not the mechanic's mood that morning.

• Body and seat belt assemblies
• Windshield and windows
• Horn
• Windshield wipers
• Rear-view mirror
• Lighting systems
• Exhaust system
• Brake system
• Steering system
• Suspension system
• Wheels and tires
• Coupling system (your hitch, if you have one)

What fails inspection in NB most often

The most common fails are the cheap ones. A licence plate light that's been out since February. A third brake light nobody has looked at in years. Wipers that smear the windshield into a grey fan every time you hit slush on Main Street. None of these cost much, and all of them are a fail.

The bigger ones are almost all about salt. Every winter we put a car's underside through months of brine and slush, and by year six or seven it shows. Steel brake lines rust where they clip to the body, usually in a spot you can't see from the wheel well. Rear calipers on cars that sit a lot seize up on their slides, so one pad wears to the backing plate while the other looks new. Exhaust hangers rot through and the pipe sags or leaks. Coil springs rust and snap, often right at the bottom coil, and you won't always feel it.

Rust on the body counts too. A rocker panel you can poke a screwdriver through, a floor with daylight in it, or a rusted frame or subframe mount is a safety problem, not a cosmetic one.

• Burnt-out bulbs: headlights, brake lights, third brake light, signals, licence plate light
• Wipers that streak or chatter, or a washer that doesn't spray
• Windshield cracks or chips in the area the wipers sweep in front of the driver
• Brake pads worn out, rotors badly rusted or scored, seized calipers
• Rusted, leaking or swollen brake lines and hoses
• Loose tie rod ends, ball joints or sway bar links (that clunk over the tracks)
• Broken coil springs and leaking struts
• Exhaust leaks, rotted hangers, a loud muffler
• Tires below the tread limit, with cords showing or cracked sidewalls
• Seat belts that won't latch or retract, a dead horn, a cracked or missing mirror
• Rust holes in the body, floor or frame

A pre-inspection self-check you can do in your driveway

Ten minutes in the driveway catches most of the easy fails. Do the lights at dusk, or back up close to the garage door and watch the reflection. Better still, get someone to stand behind the car while you hit the brakes, flip the signals and put it in reverse. Don't forget the licence plate light. It's the one that gets everybody.

Run the wipers with washer fluid and watch the glass. If they leave streaks or skip, replace them. Look at the windshield from the driver's seat for chips and cracks. Press the horn. Pull every seat belt out all the way and let it go back in, then click it.

Listen when you drive. Grinding or a steady squeal when you brake usually means pads are done. A pull to one side under braking can mean a sticking caliper. A clunk going over the railway tracks or into a driveway points at front-end parts. Check your tires with a coin or a tread gauge, and look at the inside edges too, because that's where they wear when the alignment is off.

What you can't do on a driveway is see the brake lines and the frame properly. That needs the car in the air. If your car is older and has spent its life on salted roads, assume the underside is where any surprises will be.

What happens if your car fails?

If the car fails, the station gives you a rejection sticker. That gives you 14 days to fix the problems and get the car re-inspected, and the province says the re-inspection is at no extra cost. Ask the station to write down exactly what failed so you're not guessing.

The rejection sticker isn't a free pass. It doesn't make the car safe, and police can still ticket you for something like a burnt-out headlight during those 14 days. If your sticker has already expired, Service New Brunswick can issue a transit marker, a 24-hour permit to move the vehicle to an inspection station. You'll need proof of insurance to get one. And don't be tempted by a sticker that didn't come from an inspection. Displaying a fraudulent or stolen one carries a $292 fine, and police can add Criminal Code charges on top.

You don't have to get the repairs done at the station that failed it. Get a written list, get a quote, and if the number feels high, get another. Just keep an eye on the 14 days.

We're not an inspection station, so we can't put a sticker on anything. What we can do is fix the stuff that fails cars before you book, or after you get the list: brakes, pads and rotors, bulbs, wipers, batteries and routine maintenance, in your driveway in Dieppe, Moncton, Riverview or Shediac. If the job turns out to need a hoist or shop equipment, like a rotted brake line run along the frame, we take the car to a shop and see the repair through ourselves.