Dishonest MoT tests

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Discussion

buzzer

Original Poster:

3,543 posts

241 months

Monday 26th September 2011
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A few months ago I serviced my mates mothers car for her... I don't normally do this but she is a good old soul and does not have a lot of cash... Anyway, I got it into the garage and on the ramp and gave it a good look over and a full service. I received a very nice cake in payment a few days later!

Roll on to last week and she took it into her local village MoT test station for its annual test. On Friday my mate rang to say he was surprised the car had failed the test on a "list of issues" these were:

OS inner brake pad worn with less than 1mm remaining
OS rear shock absorber has impaired damping action

there were also several advisories...

front number plate has water ingress
Exhaust shows excessive corrosion
front brake disks worn
rear tyre close to limit

After servicing the car less than 300 mile ago I found it difficult to believe that all this was wrong so I asked him to bring it back around on Saturday morning. What I found was:

The front brake pads had a consistent 4mm on them
The shock absorbers were fine, damped OK when you bounced the car there were no leaks
The rear number plate did have some marks from water ingress... fair enough, it was an advisory
the exhaust was corroded... but it structurally sound and there were no leaks.
the front disks were 7mm thick, the minimum according to the data is 6mm
the rear tyre had 3.2 mm remaining

I took the car back to the test station straight away and challenged the failures... The tester was quite defensive as you can imagine... but he soon changed his tune when I said if he didn't pass it I would lodge a notice of appeal with VOSA...

I left with a pass certificate...

I was going to get VOSA involved... but she is 75 years old and it would have had to be her that lodged the complaint, and she just does not want the hassle...

So just watch out when your car fails the MoT... it may not be all it seams!

Bitzer

4,240 posts

169 months

Monday 26th September 2011
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Also works the other way around when buying a car with a new MOT, when the dealer/trader has it MOT'd at their mate's MOT garage.


paintman

7,689 posts

191 months

Monday 26th September 2011
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Another argument for taking a vehicle to a garage that ONLY tests - or to a council testing station.