MOT failed - something doesn't seem right!

[The Turbonator]

DerBer said:

Thanks for your help everyone.

The car was 3 years old when I bought it with 11000 miles on the clock I'm doubting the previous owner removed anything.

You're probably just better off waiting to see what happens on Monday, when you take it back then. Keep us updated though and post back if you think theyre trying to rip you off. You could always take it to a council MOT station to get a 2nd opinion. They don't do repairs, so there's no incentive for them to falsely fail it.

It's all very well trying to force the car to do a regen but in my experience it's notoriously difficult to get them to do one when you want. There's been so many occasions when I've been on a long drive and the car has decided to start doing a regen, just as I'm pulling onto the street and parking on the drive. I mean WTF car, we've just done 400 miles on the motorway and you choose to do a regen now lol!

[Pistonheader101]

Rich_W said:

M_A_S said:

DerBer said:

The mechanic said the emissions were off the scale so He couldn't run the test. I asked for a print out but He said He couldn't provide it as he couldn't run the test.

Does this seem right? Or should I still be able to have a reading? I'm worried he's trying to screw me for a huge bill.

Thanks in advance.

It's not right, no. You should have got a print out and the tester is not going to know the emissions are 'off the scale' without testing it. And unless you're leaving a visible smoke trail behind it's not going to be off any scale.

THIS

Forget all the other bullst on this thread by people who don't know fk all!

The machine will give the opacity reading. Depending on the year of manufacture there's a limit. And most machines take an average of 3-7 accelerations. It will then average it out and give a result Pass or Fail. With the printout generated showing the same. If the tester hasn't given you this. Treat as suspicious IMO!

The problem is that most of these machines cant cope with modern far cleaner DPF equipped cars. So when the tester revs the engine. The meter probe doesn't see any soot. So it thinks the car wasn't revved at all. So just stalls at the "accelerate" message. It essentially has given a Zero reading. The DVSA are aware of this and there's a form to fill in which states the car was tested and the emissions were too clean to give a reading. The car automatically passes as a result.


Also, since as ever with the MOT people believe all sorts of ste. The NEW regulations and limits DO NOT APPLY retrospectively to cars that were not manufactured under those regs. So the OPs 2010 car will NOT be tested to the standard expected of a 2015 car

As ever, ALL The test information is available online at https://www.mot-testing.service.gov.uk/documents/m...

Note the different levels of soot permitted:

before 1980, (visual)
Between 1980 and 1 July 2008 (3.0m-1 for a turbocharged engine)
From '08 to 14 it was -1.5m. A
nd then tightened again from 1 Jan 14 (0.7M)

Happened to me


Advisory notice item(s)
emissions too low to be recorded

[lbc]

M_A_S said:

It's not right, no. You should have got a print out and the tester is not going to know the emissions are 'off the scale' without testing

I never get a printout from my usual garage.

It does sound like DPF was removed or maybe a split hose on the intercooler.

[littleredrooster]

Aren't modern diesels wonderful? Not only do they cost ~£100 to get through 2 MOTs every year, they also have to be thrashed for 20 unnecessary miles every week to keep them clean and have expensive horse-pee liquid poured in that hole as well as fuel in this hole...and don't forget the £1200 DPF/EGR every 100k.
ah but they do 55mpg!

[Gary C]

Peugeot HDi uses Eloys fluid for assisted regen, but should raise a code if the tank is empty (actually, it doesn't have a sensor, it just knows how much has been injected). A tank of Eloys seems to last about 90k.

It also needs to see the filler cap removed to know when to calculate how much to inject, so if the magnets are missing, it may not have been injecting any Eloys and the regents won't be effective.

As to the failure, take it to another station, especially one with no garage facilities as they have no temptation to sell you any repairs. Howard's near the lune in Lancaster is a good place to go, won't pass an unsafe car but will give you all the advice and help you need to get a car past.

Also the (at least in the 407) when doing a dpf regen, the ecu turns on all electrical loads such as glow plugs and door mirror heaters. A simple mod is to put an led in the door mirror across the heater connections (with a suitable resistor). Then you can see when the regen starts and finishes while driving.