Well, today was the big day for my missus Berlingo. At 8:45am prompt, it arrived for his MOT test. The tester was running a little behind because some berk with a BMW was arguing that the exhaust analysers weren't accurate as "BMW said it was ok". The tester, being a patient chap, tested his car on both testing machines, both came up with the same reading. The berk still argued that the machines were wrong, so the tester showed him the calibration certificates from last Friday, and told him to go and get BMW to pass it, as he was not going to..
Anyway, the Berlingo went through the test and failed.
The tester came over to me, and said "Do you do all your own work on this vehicle?"
"Yes", I replied, whilst thinking "Oh b*$£%^s, what did I do?"..
He then walked into his office. He came back and said "Sadly, I can't fix it for you". He handed me 2 number plate light bulbs and a screwdriver, and moved the car into an adjacent bay. "It appears all the work at the front end has been done to a high standard but you forgot to check these. Fix it while I do the paperwork".
So, I replaced the numberplate bulbs, and the car got a 13 month ticket - with a fail certificate, and a pass certificate issued within 2 minutes of each other.
In all seriousness, If you are in South Berkshire, I would really recommend Drift Road MOT - out in the country between Binfield/Fifield and Twyford. Very experienced testers, they don't do repairs, very fair - they're feeling the pinch at the moment with the recession, but you could do yourself a favour by getting a fair test and not be ripped off by a garage that does repairs and fails your car when it need not..