Possible dodgy MOT, what to do?........

Oh, and a bloody cushion on the seat - shortarse!

Yup. This is getting spooky! And pens and combs on the flat bit in front of the instruments, obscuring the oil warning light? More pens carefully positioned to dig into your knuckles as you release the hand-brake? And they wonder why we're always in such bad moods.

And the petrol guage on zero...

My mate plays 'Petrol Bingo' with his missus - as the guage depletes, he purposely chooses shorter journies, give her the chance to use the car. If she puts £10 its 'line', if she fills it up - its 'house'

(She doesn't know he plays this, he just tells all his mates when he 'wins'!) ;-)

Go read what *I* said. And answer it.

there are cars with a lane guidance system, yes. it is more to warn you if you drift.

which is why you push the button, conveniently located on the drivers door and it does it all for you.

wait till a toy or shoe slides under the brake pedal just when you need to use it, it happened to me and was very frightening.

you can buy vin plates for about 35 quid last time I looked online

i was thinking more of you like all the cutesy toys, driver more likely to clop up middle lane.

"Mrcheerful" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Is there a problem with buying a replacement VIN plate? I've got one sat on a windowsill at home, waiting to be stamped up and fitted.

toys improve the driver experience, in fact you don't actually want to get out of the car when you arrive somewhere, try a car with all the bits and you will be discontent with ordinary cars, it must be like when starter motors first were fitted, all the old fogeys complained.

not that I know of, but it must be easier than sodding about trying to make something at home.

Oddly, that's exactly why I drive classics - with no toys at all. Except, of course, that the car itself _is_ the toy.

Blimey, you must be an ancient fogey if you remember that.

no, I remember starting handles !! Classics are a completely different kettle of fish. But if you are getting a modern car then try something with all the gadgets and you won't go back to ordinary stuff for your comfortable car. I have just wrestled the Ferrari back in the garage: no power steering, poor steering lock, most things manual and I wouldn't change any of it because it is part of the 'experience' but if I want to drive to Scotland or Cornwall or Wales I get in the Lexus, it just makes much more sense to travel in absolute comfort, luxury and safety, and have all the toys like power seats, climate control, cruise, speed sensitive power steering etc.

the rules & regs require us to use an assistant which is another punishable offence if you are caught not using an assistant for the type of testing bay you have, the only time an assistant isnt required is if you are using OPT lane (one person testing) or a fully automated test lane. We have just had installed a OPT, just waiting for it to be commisioned.

nope, if no vin plate is displayed its grounds for refusal to test 1.i

we must direct the vehicle presenter to his/her local licensing office for them to sort it out.

Oh gosh yes - memories of transporting a couple of small kittens in my LR SIII ... naturally they managed to break out of the sturdy box they were in, and they tore about the inside of the vehicle screaming. One ended up on my shoulder shouting in my ear and the other tried to hide under the brake pedal just as I was trying to pull over and restore some kind of order. Great excitement!

None of the advisories look like things that would fail the car on its next MOT, they're largely down to opinion and how the tester was feeling that day. The discs/pads/shoes/exhaust are wear 'n tear items that would be replaced as required fairly quickly as part of doing a routine service.

In March 2008 my car passed its MOT with a number of advisories, mainly related to condition of suspension components. My garage that does the annual service doesn't do MOTs and sends the car to another garage nearby for its test before doing the service. A year later they took the car to the same tester without any action having been taken against the previous advisories. It passed the MOT first time (much to our surprise) with another - completely different - set of advisories ...

D A Stocks

[...]

I've often had advisories that I've felt didn't warrant attention, and the following year they've not been mentioned.

Chris