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Fuel Gauge Not Working When undergoing an MoT Test

I wonder if someone here could tell me if it's a fact that a non-working fuel gauge will cause an Escort sized van (or car) to fail a MoT test. The rest of the fuel system was ok.

The story on this is rather long, but during a conversation with my milkman tonight, it transpired that a non-working fuel gauge on his van was listed as one of the reasons why his vehicle failed its annual Mot Test.

To add to this, as a result of that MoT failure, the garage who did the test refused to allow him to take his vehicle from the premises stating (in the milkys words) "that under new MoT laws just brought in, they could not allow him to take his van and drive it away, and *if* they did so and he was stopped by the police, the garage would be prosecuted - even though the van's MoT still had just under a month left to expiry.

I have googled for the definitive info, but to no avail - other than a statement on the DVSA website which states, that it is against the law to drive a vehicle on the road after an MoT failure in the last month of its current MoT. Other than to take it away from the testing station for repairs.

Many thanks

Cash.

Reply to
Cash
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There is no requirement for a fuel gauge of any description for the MoT

He should ask for an appeal form and contact VOSA

Reply to
Mrcheerful

How would an MOT tester know if the gauge is faulty or if the tank is almost empty?

Reply to
Norman Rowing

Put in the reg and make here:

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and you can see for yourself what it failed on. I suspect there is something more to this than meets the eye, becuse I thought the tester can only select from a predefined list of failure reasons - they can't invent things. (Though it appears the advisories can be either predefined failure reasons or free text)

What codes do they list in the failure description?

Theo

Reply to
Theo Markettos

Reply to
Cash

For that, it would have to have a fault which was downright dangerous. Not just failed an MOT.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Even then there is no duty or legal ability of the MoT station to prevent the owner taking his property (the vehicle) away.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

I certainly can't see how they'd be liable if they've pointed out any faults and given the fail sheet etc as a print out.

But an individual garage trying to con an owner at MOT time isn't new. Sadly.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
[...]

The ability of a garage to legally prevent you from driving away a failed vehicle was generally known as the 'red ticket' scheme. It ended in the

1980's because it was so open to abuse.

There is no offence of driving a failed vehicle that still has some MOT remaining. It may well be that that reason for failure would make the vehicle illegal to drive however. The garage could not be prosecuted for failing to prevent you driving the vehicle, as long as they had followed the MOT rules fully.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

I did get a red failure once in the 70s, but I still drove the car away without argument.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

My money is on this.

Reply to
SteveH

I'm presuming the Escort sized van is actually an Escort van - and therefore about 200 years old and accordingly rotten.

(Having said that, the late 90s Escorts always seemed pretty rot free to me. I can only think most were exported or scrapped as they were worthless and less desirable than a Focus.)

Reply to
Scott M

They built Escort vans until 2002.

Reply to
Adrian

I still fall into the mindset that 2002 is the future and 51 plate cars are new but it really is a long time ago now!

They really dropped off the face of the earth though. HowManyLeft says there were 195k Escrort LXs (random model) in 2001 with it dropping off at about 20k per year (so starting at 10%/annum and increasing) until

09/10 when the numbers slow down but the rate hits about 30%/annum.
Reply to
Scott M

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