mot

But the part you're missing is that a garage can already charge the full fee for a retest if someone takes the car home and repairs it themselves.

Garages choose to waive this. Nothing in the future will stop them doing the same.

Especially as alot of them are done by non MOT qualified mechanics.

like the ones who play chicken on the railway line and get spladged

agreed

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I'm pretty responsible when it comes to my kids, but I also know that I can't watch them like a hawk every second of the day and I can't ensure they obey my every command. And I'll bet you didn't when you were small, either.

And even if you really believe that it's OK to run some kid over 'cos they're stupid, you may well find their parents or neighbours will decide it's OK to brain you 'cos you're stupid too.

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And why just outside schools?

In my experience hazards are everywhere and it's driving in the knowledge of that which has allowed me the last 200,000 miles with only one accident - and that was being tailended while stationary at a junction. That, and a certain amount of luck, obviously!

Yes but I think the thing is currently they can "do the retest" a bit quicker than the original test so the cost to them of doing this is not too great. Once the system is computerised each step in the test will be logged on the computer, leaving no scope to skip bits ;-).

AJH

I'd hazard a guess that you wind up clocks as well ??

:-))

Not so - do you really think the inspector is going to be carting a PCLaptop around whilst carrying out the test?

OTOH there's a lot of lowlifes who wouldn'y pay anyway. Pees me off that they can drive round for months without tax and the police aren't interested, even when you tell them. But if I tried it I'd get pulled tomorrow... Near neighbour of mine has just been in court for driving without licence (and by implication, insurance). Which is probably why he could afford a 53-plate Astra SRi. He's been driving in this way for at least

A pre-MOT check is the inspection I do _myself_ before I take the car for its test. Which means my cars rarely fail as I've already looked at the things the MOT man will look at, and sorted any problems I find.

It's only the type of basic inspection any responsible motorist should be doing anyway. Most people can't test emissions at home, but there's very little on the MOT test that even a non-mechanical motorist can't spot with a basic inspection. You check the lights, wipers, washers, seatbelts. You inspect for corrosion, especially within 30cm of suspension & subframes. You examine the brake pipes including flexis, the exhaust, and tyres. You jack the car up, spin and wobble the wheels. As a driver you should know whether your brakes are working more or less correctly. There's not much outside that lot, which you can do in under half an hour.

If you're not able to do the work yourself you find someone who can, be that garage or competant friend.

I suspect that a high proportion of MOT fails are due to people who are too tight to do a proper repair/maintenance job, and are therefore quite happy to put their own and other peoples' lives at risk. I've been pretty short of cash for a long time now but the cars always get repaired properly.

If you don't cheer up I'm going to come and drive back and forward infront of your house with one of these

Ad

Then they can go & brain the evil high tension electricity line that electrocuted their other kid.

Like worn ball joints, steering racks, TCA bushes, suspension link bushes, rear arm bushes and bearings...

Know how to check all of those do you?

I'm assuming the it would mean that the inspector has to check some checkboxes on some form after entering in approriate details about the car. i.e., it would be like a standard MOT check list, but it would be electronic. The inspector checks somethign, then ticks the box. They print out a hard copy and give it to the customer. Car needs repairs, garage does repairs, looks at original hard copy, opens another test on the system, checks all thoses boxes for the passed tests from the first test and having retested the failed things, then checks those boxes too (assuming they pass).

I really cant see how this will take much longer, or disallow free second testing and force them to retest everything

Except "as I understand it" the system is designed (by the ministry) so that the test spot will be a minimum of 45mins duration. At the start the tester will log on and enter the vehicle details, log out and do the test. Once the test is finished the tester re logs into the system and enters the results etc.

According to people I have spoken to, the system will not allow you to finish a test (or retest) in under 45mins, so a retest cannot be accomplished in under 45 minutes (except the within 24 hour type failures)

This is going to put a definite limit on the test slots a garage has and therefore I think the free retest will disappear.

Graham

Well I can't recall having a problem checking any of those. You can buy the MOT testing manual.

Yes I do as it happens; I am mechanically competant. I was just over-simplifying things to point out that few MOT failures should come as a surprise to anyone who take a little time over some basic checks.

Of course I realise there are those who use the first MOT test for the tester to "diagnose" what is wrong with their vehicle before they attempt to fix it. That's just lazy, and could be cited as a reason to stop free retests (not that I'm advocating that!)

Working round that would hardly be rocket science though.

Really? I would be interested how it can be if only 1 tester (assuming 1 test lane at the garage) can be logged in at once, and he cannot log out until a min of 45 mins has passed. Sure the garage could do un_official Pre MOT so cars don't need "retest" slots but that would still mean doing a full test twice AND would put the garages pass rate up to 100%.

Graham