The ask an MOT tester thread

[Monkeylegend]

I used to take my car to our local garage with a guy I knew well for year.

He used to let me sit in the car on the ramps and wiggle the steering wheel, turn it onto full lock, apply the handbrake and footbrake while he was under the car doing the test.

I also used to start an stop the engine at his request from up high. Never had a fail with him.

Is this really allowed?

[Athlon]

Casa1862 said:

Are the council run MOT places more strict as they are used to testing taxis and commercial vehicles?

They don't tend to do taxi's,they are another level, taxi test is brutal compared to an standard MOT.

All stations should test to the same standard although one thing rarely considered is that some testers in non council stations will let a close one go as they don't fancy doing the repair on a Friday afternoon! Council will work to tighter rules as they don't have to mop up the fail..Most testers are techs as well and test then repair and might not fancy the slightly rough wheel bearing on a transit late on a Friday!

[Athlon]

Monkeylegend said:

I used to take my car to our local garage with a guy I knew well for year.

He used to let me sit in the car on the ramps and wiggle the steering wheel, turn it onto full lock, apply the handbrake and footbrake while he was under the car doing the test.

I also used to start an stop the engine at his request from up high. Never had a fail with him.

Is this really allowed?

Yep, an assistant is fine, most stations are ATL now with shaker plates etc but a helping hand is good, I appreciate the help, especially with specialised cars.

[Monkeylegend]

Athlon said:

Monkeylegend said:

I used to take my car to our local garage with a guy I knew well for year.

He used to let me sit in the car on the ramps and wiggle the steering wheel, turn it onto full lock, apply the handbrake and footbrake while he was under the car doing the test.

I also used to start an stop the engine at his request from up high. Never had a fail with him.

Is this really allowed?

Yep, an assistant is fine, most stations are ATL now with shaker plates etc but a helping hand is good, I appreciate the help, especially with specialised cars.

I quite enjoyed being involved, better than sitting watching nervously.

[stevemcs]

LosingGrip said:

Is there a reason why i took my bike in for a tyre change and MOT that they did the MOT first, fail it and then did it again with the new tyre?

We would do the same, you know its going to fail on the tyre so put it through and see if there are any other issues and if not carry out the rework and pass.

With cars and servicing there is little point spending £90 on a service then MOT'ing it only for it to fail on emissions, put it through the test then you have time in the diary to fix it or it keeps the bill lower for the customer if they only want to spend a small amount.

[ColdoRS]

What is the financial incentive to be an MOT tester/have testing facilities in house?

I assume it isn’t big profits, when you see tests advertised for £25 etc...?

[stevemcs]

ColdoRS said:

What is the financial incentive to be an MOT tester/have testing facilities in house?

I assume it isn’t big profits, when you see tests advertised for £25 etc...?

No incentive, unless your trying fail stuff and pick up the rework. We charge the standard £54.85 for class 4's and carry out 6-7 tests every day. We have no incentive to fail them as we have a diary thats full and have zero space to carry out any repairs, currently we are booking for 2nd week in September for the workshop.

Why charge £25 for an hours work unless your cutting corners or something else ?

[Athlon]

stevemcs said:

ColdoRS said:

What is the financial incentive to be an MOT tester/have testing facilities in house?

I assume it isn’t big profits, when you see tests advertised for £25 etc...?

No incentive, unless your trying fail stuff and pick up the rework. We charge the standard £54.85 for class 4's and carry out 6-7 tests every day. We have no incentive to fail them as we have a diary thats full and have zero space to carry out any repairs, currently we are booking for 2nd week in September for the workshop.

Why charge £25 for an hours work unless your cutting corners or something else ?

Agreed, we are mostly class iv and there is little profit in the job, it's a service we provide that keeps us busy, I have no idea how they can do tests at £25 to be honest, we charge £45 for class iv and if we are busy break even on the year..

[anonymous-user]

Have you ever had someone really mad at a failure? Particularly those who put a lot of stock in a blemish free record?

[InitialDave]

The thing with being able to return for a free/reduced price partial retest within a given time, is that site specific, or tester specific?

Reason I ask is a friend took his car for an MOT, which it failed (rightly!). We fixed it immediately, and he took it back the next working day. This is where it gets interesting - they said the car needed a full retest, as the tester who looked at it first time was a temp/locum guy while their regular tester was off. It didn't make any real difference to things, as they did it free of charge and it passed, but it did indeed get a full retest, and the second guy came up with different advisories to the first guy.

Would the second guy not have been correct to have looked only at the recitifed previous failures? Or is he correct to treat it as a fresh job seeing as he's the one now puttign his name against it?

I can see why either is the "right" answer.

[stevemcs]

InitialDave said:

The thing with being able to return for a free/reduced price partial retest within a given time, is that site specific, or tester specific?

Reason I ask is a friend took his car for an MOT, which it failed (rightly!). We fixed it immediately, and he took it back the next working day. This is where it gets interesting - they said the car needed a full retest, as the tester who looked at it first time was a temp/locum guy while their regular tester was off. It didn't make any real difference to things, as they did it free of charge and it passed, but it did indeed get a full retest, and the second guy came up with different advisories to the first guy.

Would the second guy not have been correct to have looked only at the recitifed previous failures? Or is he correct to treat it as a fresh job seeing as he's the one now puttign his name against it?

I can see why either is the "right" answer.

10 working days for a retest, its only tested on the items its failed on. However if the tester notices anything that is a fail - such as a bulb out or 4 bald tyres when its presented then it will fail.

[Its Just Adz]

No questions but my dad has a garage and been an MOT tester all my life, so I know how thankless a task it is.
Keep on having fun!

[Athlon]

2002 said:

Have you ever had someone really mad at a failure? Particularly those who put a lot of stock in a blemish free record?

Not really, one or two have had the hump but if the car is not right then...

[InitialDave]

stevemcs said:

10 working days for a retest, its only tested on the items its failed on. However if the tester notices anything that is a fail - such as a bulb out or 4 bald tyres when its presented then it will fail.

That's what I thought.

But as I said, he was told when he returned that it needed a full retest because it was different tester.


Edit: For clarification, he was told this before anyone looked at the car. It definitely wasn't a cover for looking closer at somethign the tester thought was a bit fishy or anything.

Edited by InitialDave on Friday 30th August 23:18

[Johnny Raydome]

Would you issue an advisory if you thought the owner of the car looked like a bit of a ?

[stevemcs]

InitialDave said:

That's what I thought.

But as I said, he was told when he returned that it needed a full retest because it was different tester.


Edit: For clarification, he was told this before anyone looked at the car. It definitely wasn't a cover for looking closer at somethign the tester thought was a bit fishy or anything.

Edited by InitialDave on Friday 30th August 23:18

Makes no difference for us.

Oh a swearing on a test certificate is now a 5 year ban .....

If you want to annoy an MOT tester then follow him around the car.

[Speed Badger]

I once had an import jap car fail because the little red LED on the rear fog light button on the dash did not illuminate, but the foglight itself worked perfectly. It still annoys me to this day. I have no particular question. Just that you're one of THEM

[hyphen]

Johnny Raydome said:

Would you issue an advisory if you thought the owner of the car looked like a bit of a ?

I saw that one doing the rounds last week

[Eyersey1234]

Supposing a bulb blows on test but the tester has already marked it as being OK, would the tester have to change what was recorded on the MOT computer?

[Mr Tidy]

I took my BMW 325i for a test in early 2018 - the "tester" wanted to fail it for "thin" rear brake pads!

I told him the OBC was showing 22,000 miles life in them, and then he decided it may become an advisory! But I always understood the MOT was supposed to assess the car on the day it was presented - or did I miss something?

I've been back to the same place twice this year and thankfully managed to avoid "Dan" the tw*t

But that sort of nonsense doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the general public - or me!