944 update

Does it have history of when the cambelt and tensioner was changed?

Hello,

I didn't realise that worn brake pads were an MOT failure as i didn't think they were even checked. I once got a car from a main dealer and only a week later it was metal to metal and that passed the MOT. It would have been easy for you to check the bulbs worked before going in and fixing them first !

Er, what ?

Are you insane ?

It obviously didn't go through the MOT test then ! Don't buy from that dealer again !

To put it simply - he probably couldn't be arsed. I never bother checking anything before my MOT - that's what I'm paying the garage to do :)

Visual inspection, if in their opinion they are close to end of life, they can fail on them.

As far as I'm concerned, it's up to the garage to take my £25 and write out a bit of paper, and that's it.

Admittedly even I was surprised when the Sera came back with a misaligned headlamp (which I knew about, they're new, and the garage had left because I'm clearly in the process of straightening the mounting panel) and a blown brakelight. To be fair, they also know I'm 20 miles away and said "The brake light is blown. Replace it". Personally I appreciate that. It's more than their job's worth to let the car go out with any serious faults, but it's a PITA to be handed a fail for a sodding bulb, or indeed, to be charged 1/2 hour labour for a 5 minute bulb change.

I check everything. I've had an Audi Quattro fail on play in the suspension when a most assuredly non-regulation tool was used to check it, and I've had a Fiat X1/9 which was almost entirely made of filler. Garage regretted passing that one ;) Only thing I can't be really thorough on is wishbone bushes and corrosion far under the car, and of course I have no idea regardlng the emissions, but I try to avoid having anything which needs a cat as a banger.

Richard

Blimey where do you get your MOT's done?? the last 3 I had cost me over £35 each (!)

I.

Nice one - bit of a step up from an old 305!! Good work fella.

-- Peter

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ISTR people saying that to me when I had the Carlton (the last one of a long line!), but my view is that even if there are minor things that'll need doing, if you haven't got around to fixing them and are half expecting it to fail on something slightly more tricky to fix, then it's not worth bothering with - just get a list, and fix everything in one go. With my Carlton, all it failed on (IIRC) was a sidlight bulb, a massive crack in the windscreen, and emissions (I'd de-catted it, and it was a 93 model, so subject to the newer test). I could have got a new screen put in and replaced the bulb before taking it in, but I was half expecting it to fail on emissions, so I'd still have had to take it home to re-cat it, so I just did it all in the one session.

-- Peter

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If something expensive goes wrong, break it for parts if its got loads of new ones on :D

True. When I had the Seat Inca van, that was about a month short of 3 years old when I got it, and all that failed on was 2 sidelight bulbs (yes, both, yes, who's the numpty!). Anyway - I fitted them myself (actually was a bit of a pig, relatively speaking, as I had to remove the grille, and both headlight units to get to the sods, certainly on one side anyway) outside the garage - and the garage supplied the bulbs. I just asked them if they had some sidelight bulbs in stock, and he gave me two. I never asked about the cost, and was charged about a quid each for them. Ok, so they would have probably been 20-30p each somewhere else, but it's fair to expect a garage to make a profit on supplying something, and it saved me the hassle, so no problem there. He didn't bother checking that they worked as he'd seen me doing it, so happily wrote out a ticket.

-- Peter

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under £40! I remember the days when it was

It's £40 at most garages around here. £25 is 'trade rate' I suspect.

Better than the place about 10 miles away which you could phone up, tell them you were bringing the car in, they'd ask for the VIN and Registration etc, and when you got there you'd have a cup of coffee and a chat whilst they peered at the lights and tyres - don't want anything /too/ obvious, after all - then they'd hand you the already-written-out MOT.

Scary.

Richard (this predates all those emission computers, though).

Peugeot Rapid Fit do them for £20 on Seamer Road in Scarborough. I seem to recall my last one was £20 at my local Indy.

Brake pads should be checked - they won't take the wheels off to check though, so if they're very difficult/impossible to see, you might get away with it. Of course, that assumes it still passes the brake test and the discs aren't badly scored. Remember that whilst brake pads can be seen, brake shoes in a drum cannot, so I think an MOT tester will more normally rely on the brake efficiency test. In my case, most of the pads looked to have a decent amount of wear left - except for one which was so very close to the metal, I'm happy for the garage to fail it on that.

I bought the 944 with no MOT or tax - the only legal way to get it home without a trailer was to drive it direct to an MOT testing centre. I reckoned it was good enough to drive but was well expecting it to fail on something other than lights. I *did* actually do a quick check of all the lights before driving off - only one number plate light wasn't working. Two more lights went out due to faulty connections on the drive to the garage. Of course, if I had a car on the road and expected it to pass, I'd probably give the lights a check over if I had the time just to make sure it didn't fail on something stupid.

Chris.

Yes - I have a receipt for a replacement engine bought and installed while the car was off the road. He told me he replaced all the belts up front at the same time - I can't see the cambelt but have every reason to believe him, since he went to the trouble of replacing *all* the belts I can see and also gave me a very detailed run down of just about everything he had done to the car. I had to go back to the seller's house to pick up the key for the locking wheelnuts - I told him the result of the MOT, he didn't exactly look, umm.. happy. He probably could have sold it for a lot more if he'd bothered to MOT it.

Chris.

Yeah. This time last year I was trying desperately to keep that 305 on the road - I've still got a massive stockpile of 305 parts and yes, it still sits in an undercover carpark gathering dust. It WILL drive again! I dunno exactly what I'm gonna do with it when it does finally turn a wheel - it's more a battle of will and determination than a logical thought process. I think I'm definately gonna stick to Porsches for the forseeable future.. and I used to think the Peugeot handled well. Doh! ;)

Chris.

Makes you grin doesn't it. Germans have a word for it Schadenfreuder. Taking please in the misfortune of others.

A mate of mine bought a Metro GTI a couple of years back from a bloke that came across as very honest and genuine, and said that the car had been his pride and joy, and told him that the cambelt had been done fairly recently (last 6 months I think, and not many miles). It snapped on my mate, who now swears he'll never believe what anyone tells him again unless there's a bit of paper to back it up. Maybe the bloke was telling porkies, or maybe the belt (or tensioner) was faulty - who knows, but it's only a 10 minute job that my mate would have rather done.

-- Peter

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Ah the Simpsons :)

Does it matter, it's only an LT35 engine, so a cambelt will take a couple of hours and £50 of bits to do on your drive.