Garage MOT Scam.

Author
Discussion

KevinCamaroSS

11,555 posts

279 months

Thursday 30th March 2017
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Steve57 said:
Cut story shorter (sorry) he agrees that he will change the drivers side rear shock FOC, we push for the pair to be swapped and agree on buying one shock, he buys one shock and fits both FOC. FFWD to last night i go look at the car, guess what rear shocks are FINE!!!
I have no idea what your issue is. Here you say you checked the car AFTER the new shocks were fitted and it is OK. I would hope it was!

Steve57

Original Poster:

2,159 posts

241 months

Thursday 30th March 2017
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KevinCamaroSS said:
I have no idea what your issue is. Here you say you checked the car AFTER the new shocks were fitted and it is OK. I would hope it was!
The rear shocks HAVEN'T been changed he agreed he would change them when he changed his story when we questioned the front being fine to that he made an error and it was the rear shock, eventually agreeing that he would change the rear shocks, i then looked at the OLD rear shocks still fitted to the car with NO leaks. yet he is saying it has a serious leak. or was that the fronts wink or none.

Edited by Steve57 on Thursday 30th March 14:35

xjay1337

15,966 posts

117 months

Thursday 30th March 2017
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Annoying.
It happens.

Complain to trading standards or move on. Obviously don't provide them any more business.

Not worth the stress IMO.

Sheepshanks

32,530 posts

118 months

Thursday 30th March 2017
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Steve57 said:
.. the wife...
This is where you slipped up. Never let a woman take a car for MOT.

Sheepshanks

32,530 posts

118 months

Thursday 30th March 2017
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eybic said:
Trading standards? I suspect they get this type of complaint a lot.
I doubt it, in most places they don't exist anymore as a service the public can access.

Sheepshanks

32,530 posts

118 months

Thursday 30th March 2017
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geeks said:
Trouble is, if the test thinks he sees misting on the shocks then he will fail it,
Had advisories for 2yrs that there's misting on our Golf's front shockers. There's even a bulletin from VW to say it's OK.

wack

2,103 posts

205 months

Thursday 30th March 2017
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Not all garages scam work

This one conducted 2463 MOTs without a single fail , they even save you time doing the test in 7-11 minutes or less if you can't get the car there

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/8490271....

rambo19

2,737 posts

136 months

Friday 31st March 2017
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wack said:
Not all garages scam work

This one conducted 2463 MOTs without a single fail , they even save you time doing the test in 7-11 minutes or less if you can't get the car there

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/8490271....
I knew a dodgy turkish geezer in hackney that was doing the same thing.
He was writing about 80 MOT's per day and ended up getting caught!

Steve57

Original Poster:

2,159 posts

241 months

Friday 31st March 2017
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Amazingly, the boss had a day off yesterday, today he isn't in either but possibly in this afternoon.
Can see a visit on the cards for a face/face if he wont talk on the phone.

jdw100

4,067 posts

163 months

Friday 31st March 2017
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A few years back now (20?!?) I had a very nice 200sx turbo (before idiots starting buying them and putting stupid exhausts on them...) which I kept in very good condition.

Checked it in to my local garage for an MOT convinced it would sail through. It failed on lots of stuff, which the garage offered to put right for c£800, a lot of money back then.

I wasn't convinced so took it to another MOT station (also my Nissan main dealer where I had my servicing done). They passed it with no issues at all. I then revealed the fail sheet from the other garage. The service manager went through it all with me and then said please call VOSA because this guy is seriously trying to scam you.

Ended up first thing one morning the following week outside the first garage with a VOSA inspector. Had the car up on the ramps and the Inspector did another MOT whilst the garage owner stood around staring at me with hatred.

It passed fine (as per the Nissan MOT). None of it, according to inspector, was even borderline failure. End result was a refund for me and a fine for the garage and as I recall the threat of future 'mystery shoppers' to check up on them.

Used to see the garage owner around town occasionally...he could win prizes for scowling!

bristolracer

5,527 posts

148 months

Friday 31st March 2017
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I was chatting to a garage owner who has stopped doing mots as it has become a total pita
Not worth the time and effort for the grief,he does any work and then sends it down the road for a test.

supermono

7,368 posts

247 months

Friday 31st March 2017
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Absolutely report them to trading standards and VOSA.

I had an issue with Halfords Autocentre in Byfleet where the had a mahoosive gorilla yank the handbrake up hard enough that the spring/cable stretch was enough to bring it to the stop. He failed it with too much freeplay in the handbrake. I'd actually fitted new disks and pads on all four wheels not 1000 miles previously, and adjusted the handbrake perfectly.

I disputed this and they wouldn't budge, so I took it to the local main dealer who confirmed brakes were completely perfect and the mechanism allows for the handbrake to be pulled all the way up if you're stupid enough to force it (built in strong spring), and showed me a couple of brand new cars in the showroom which were identical.

They also passed the MOT with no advisories.

There are chancers in these companies trying to screw money out of you (he was going to strip and investigate the 'fault', replacing whatever turned out to be broken and worn, though what he would have made of brand new stuff I don't know).

Trading Standards are interested in this stuff and VOSA are likely to revoke a licence provided enough people take the trouble to notify them, saving less mechanically proficient people from being robbed.

Gareth79

7,628 posts

245 months

Sunday 2nd April 2017
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I'd like to think that with compterised MOTs, the DVSA could identify garages which fail on certain 'favourite' items more than others, although I imagine there is enough natural variance that it could be a tricky job.

All the data until 2013 is available publicly, but I can't remember if the actual station can be identified. Apparently they couldn't update the data since a new computer system was introduced, they are looking at re-releasing the data, presumably with the VRMs since the MOT results are published now anyway:

https://data.gov.uk/dataset/anonymised_mot_test

edit: Another way it could be tricky is that somebody could *know* their brakes or exhaust is dodgy and take it to a chain that is known for repairing them. The chain's policy is perhaps to do the test first to identify work, therefore they would get far more fails on items they repair merely because the owner specifically took it there.



Edited by Gareth79 on Sunday 2nd April 20:19