MOT Standards

A lady friend of mine called me in tears ages ago. She had her car in for an MOT - went to the garage and they said it had failed on a brake problem, and they already had it up on ramps with the rear brakes in bits. They said they couldn't put it back together now, so she'd have to pay to have it done there. She didn't *want* it done there.

I went down and argued till well after closing time until finally they got the breakdown truck out and towed it, free of charge, rear in the air to the garage she wanted to use (but which didn't do MOTs).

She was furious at them for the shady practices *and* for refusing to take her seriously.

It was a Ford main dealer. Now it's been flattened and it's a big old folks home. Shame.

no I know its not comprehensive as there is circa 18,000 mot testing stations, mot only & mot/repair stations.

If it was just for an MoT test, surely it shouldn't have been "in bits"?!? I thought that a fundamental principle of the MoT test were that they weren't allowed to disassemble anything?

That's the point - it may have failed on the brakes but they disassembled it to 'force' her to get them to do the work. And given other things I've heard about them since, to stop a second opinion somewhere else from finding no problems.

Neither me nor her was up for being pushed into it that day... but it was a fight.

Because the DVLA isn't on the premises and it has to record things that might otherwise be completed by the testeron the paper work while you pay at the till

Did you take advantage of the viewing position?

Did they get inside the car at any time other than the drivers seat? The test for the belts is just a smooth pull to test for action and a firm pull to test for the locking. They can't test the mountings on a lot of cars anymore because they are concealed, and would only know if it broke away in their hands.

So a man didn't wheel a box infront one headlamp then the other?

The probe measure exhaust pulses and uses the number of cylinders to measure revs. It doesn't have to be exact, just withing a range.

The temperature gauge will be on the emissions test machine. It uses EGT from the probe I believe.

Why would you ever pay a garage to generally service a car, when the internet is full of tech info for almost anything out there, including service needs and intervals. When specialist stuff like belts are due, then use a garage just for that.

Maybe they were giving the brakes a basic test as you are supposed to each time you drive the car.

Do you push the brakes while stationary to check they appear to function, then once moving, accelerate upto 30 and brake hard to confirm they do indeed work? You are supposed to, as soon as conditions permit.

You can appeal against a pass. Of course, I suppose then, if it failed the appeal test then you would be without a car until it was fixed. Especially if it was declared unfit to be on the road.

But if you thought your car might be dangerous, then you should definatley appeal, and maybe get your car fixed before hoping to get a real thorough exam, but a bent ticket.

A bit like when my wife took her Carina in for a service and they replaced the platinum-tipped plugs without asking. We knew they'd been done at the previous service when we bought the car. However my wife doesn't tend to take no for an answer and sat there until they put the "old" ones back!

In news: snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com, petermcmillan snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Yup, and it takes longer.

Moroist? Is this the new definition of Peter McMillan. Sounds like a cross between motorist and moron to me.

So you didn't see them do something. Did you have a coffee at any point, did something interesting happen in the street?

No shit you're no expert. You're a knowledgeless muppet who thinks he's an expert.

Maybe the brakes were pinking.

It's good old Great British Apathy that's to blame, nothing more.

"What do we want?"

"Erm, dunno."

"When do we want it?"

"Whenever...."