MOT question.

[winseer]

DoYouMeanMe?:
But if your car isn’t fit to pass an MOT, it’s not fit to be on the road anyway is it? if a vehicle examiner checks it over, which does happen sometimes, you’re in the brown stuff anyway.
A yearly MOT is not all that’s needed when running a car, you should at least make sure your car remains legal.

It’s all about me not actually knowing, and being unable to rely on things.

Last year, my car which had passed the MOT the previous year came out of the MOT with a proposed bill of nearly a grand to make it legal. Because of no previous problems, I had no idea this was coming. The proposed work was welding & suspension system, which I had not noticed anything wrong with.

This year, if something like that happened again, I wanted the option to use the remaining days on the original MOT (since no new one would be issued for the fail) to go and find a new car, rather than tour around in a taxi or bus trying to do it.
It seems that getting an MOT done early only cancels the one already in issue - should an unexpected fail occur, which after my experience from last year is now in my paranoid mind a distinct possibility. The only thing I have noticed is the handbrake travel being on the loose side, so I am assuming that this is going to fail, and I intend getting it fixed. I don’t want to get the damned thing fixed though if there’s a grand’s worth of other work as well, that is outside my pocket! I’d rather scrap it, and get another car before I’ve spent any money repairing the damned thing only to scrap it anyway.

The order of events the way I want it is:
Take free MOT at halfords
(A) It passes,
(B) It fails on only handbrake travel with only minor other repair expenses,
or
(C) It fails on handbrake travel with another major expense item on top.

I’m getting quotes between £150 and £350 to get the handbrake done (based on it being a repair, or complete replacement kit), none of it at halfords as they don’t seem to do the repairs I’m interested in at that branch.

If it major fails, I scrap it, and get a new car having wasted no further money, but still need to get to the venue to buy the new car, and decommission the old one. Previously, these have always been one and the same place of course!

If it minor fails, I put it in for repair, which has to be done at a third-party garage, as the MOT testing station doesn’t do comprehensive repairs.
Then of course, there’s the chance the handbrake travel is just a loose cable that need tightening up, and the car otherwise passes. Minor expense, but done straight away at halfords itself.

To complicate matters, I don’t do credit and I only buy cars costing less than a grand in the first place.

In the past, this would have been a straight-forward “good faith” course of events. Nowdays however, it seems that I’m at odds with the new computerised system of MOTing that cancels the old one even if it is a minor fail if I understand correctly. The way I understand it, I could get pulled after being “flagged” on a passing car that is monitoring for “no mot”, and should I be going anywhere other than direct to the repair garage, I’m going to get done I take it?

[doyoumeanme_1]

I see where you are coming from, but let me add this into the mix.

The things needed to pass an MOT vary by a massive amount depending on where you take the car. NOTHING in life is free. Take these Brake and safety centres as an example, the sign outside proudly shouting, “Let us give your car a free brake safety check”. They will always find work to do. It’s the same with MOT’s. It takes 40 mins to do an MOT now (that is the time you have to allow from inserting the reg to clearing your card to do another), that 40 mins has to be paid one way or another and being as many items are “in the examiners opinion”, guess what happens, especially when you introduce a bonus system. It is the biggest crooks charter known! You are asking a man who has a backroom full of parts ready to fit on your car, if you need any on yours. It’s a bit like the system we have in this country where we ask an optician, who makes a killing out of selling glasses, if we need glasses!
Most towns now have places who do honest MOT’s, not the main dealers or service centres, but firms who do MOT’s and do not do repairs, their business is purely doing MOT tests. These firms have nothing to gain in stretching their opinion to sell you parts that are not needed. I have used one of these for almost 20 yrs for my customers and have had cars fail on a couple of minor items costing £50 max that had been presented to a main dealer and they have told the owner it needs over £500 spending on the brakes alone. Diesels where they have said it needs a new pump and injectors when all it really needed was a blast down the local bypass at full revs in 3rd to clean the loose particles from the exhaust which the rev test was blowing into the analyser as the old owner rarely revs the motor hard or does long journeys.
Very often, your ‘free’ MOT costs you hundreds of pounds that didn’t ever need spending!

[winseer]

Can you see why I’m so keen to take out the halfords MOT?

BECAUSE they won’t be doing any work they might find, I know it will be a bona-fide appraisal!

Armed with their fail note if it comes to that, I can then turn up at another garage and they’d be hard pressed to call a well-known firm like Halfords “cowboys” for “not finding that £500 worth of work on the brakes” rather than the “£150 worth of work on reserve travel only” you might say.

In other words, I am just trying to cut the crap here, and get treated in an honest and forthright manner by the industry.
Obviously, turning up at another garage for repairs and putting it in there for another MOT is going to cost me whatever that third party garage charges, as I would imagine that halfords won’t be doing “free re-tests” having not charged me in the first place!

[doyoumeanme_1]

You have much more faith than me if you think you will get a fair MOT there! Good luck though.

[discoman]

AHT:
Not being funny but cant you not get a bus/taxi/cycle to work
having a car isnt the be all and end all, even if its costs you a tenner in public transport £60 or £70 a day minus a £10 is still money

He finishes at 3 am no buses then has to walk 10 miles home, sit on the dole screw em get your rent council tax paid free dental prescriptions glasses … .have a lcd tv sky immigrants do it so why shouldnt he.

[winseer]

I’ll typically finish a shift around 5am with a 50 mile round trip.

There’s my own transport, and there’s no transport.

I have more faith in getting a fair MOT from someone who doesn’t benefit from “making stuff up” than at a repair/MOT one-stop garage.

Has halfords got a bad rep I’m not aware of then?

If reserve travel “not enough” means hitting some kind of metal stop, then I’ve never known a handbrake on any cars I’ve driven to pull that far. My definition of “dodgy” is simply the handle comes up a long way - but not to the metal stop, as I would imagine that the handbrake isn’t even on at such a level, which is the whole point of it being considered “defective brakes” I guess.

When you buy a second hand car from a dealer, why doesn’t the MOT they give you have any “advisories” on it?
Does lack of advisories mean it’s a conjured-up mickey mouse one done in-house?

[doyoumeanme_1]

Windmaster,
Put yourself in this situation. You have a garage that does work on motors, something comes in for an MOT and there are a few parts a bit worn. Not dangerous and not liable to fall to bits in the next week, but like every part of the motor, worn a bit since it was new. You have no other earning work booked in that day, so does that tiny bit of play in the ball joints warrant replacement? It does today else you aint getting any wages. Now take that to the next step, you work for a big chain that buys brake discs for £2.50 but sells them for £25.00. Every disc is marked a bit and can be classed as worn or grooved and the boss gives a bonus for evey set sold. Guess the outcome.

Then look at a small MOT only test station. To fail a car probably doubles the amount of work they have to do as most offer free retests, but they wouldn’t let a dodgy motor through as their licence is their income. Which sounds most likely to give a true appraisal…

[winseer]

trux:

Trev_H:

Winseer:
I have no idea what else it might fail on apart from a dodgy handbreak travel.

Dodgy handbrake travel is 3 points on your licence if you get pulled ! they class it as defective brakes.

Tighten up the handbrake on a citroen or peugeot 4 notches or less, and you will find yourself locking up the back-end every pot hole and speed bump/traffic calmer.
And believe me , there`s a ■■■■ site load of potholes about

Good job I’m driving a 51 plate mondeo then. I like mondeos, and I’d buy another second hand one. Insurer is making noises now about it being over 10 years old, but asking prices for second hand ones seem to have gone up quite a bit of late.
I may well be in the market to get another one, if the price is right (less than a grand, as recent as possible beyond 2001)
I bought the one I have now a year ago for £500 (+PE), spent about £220 getting the cat/plugs fixed and serviced.
Today, some knob has managed to drive down my street and knocked a few of our wing mirrors off, including mine, so replacing the car is a distinct possibility now, as I already know it needs handbrake work.

[winseer]

DoYouMeanMe?:
Windmaster,
Put yourself in this situation. You have a garage that does work on motors, something comes in for an MOT and there are a few parts a bit worn. Not dangerous and not liable to fall to bits in the next week, but like every part of the motor, worn a bit since it was new. You have no other earning work booked in that day, so does that tiny bit of play in the ball joints warrant replacement? It does today else you aint getting any wages. Now take that to the next step, you work for a big chain that buys brake discs for £2.50 but sells them for £25.00. Every disc is marked a bit and can be classed as worn or grooved and the boss gives a bonus for evey set sold. Guess the outcome.

Then look at a small MOT only test station. To fail a car probably doubles the amount of work they have to do as most offer free retests, but they wouldn’t let a dodgy motor through as their licence is their income. Which sounds most likely to give a true appraisal…

I think we are at cross purposes here. Everyone is talking of halfords as if they were doing the repairs.
They are NOT.
My local halfords is MOT only, meaning I was going to take their apprasial more seriously than a MOT station with a workshop. They are surely NOT going to find things wrong on a “made it up” basis, but they WILL fail on anything that results in a seriously dodgy motor.
Compare that to an in-house place where you’ll be sold sold sold everything from “hairline crack in you wheelnuts - we’ll replace them” to “Emissions contain a little bit too much N2O, so we’ll change your CAT!”

If halfords fail a car when they can’t be doing the repairs, then they’re only going to fail it on things that would get them into trouble if they didn’t - which is what you’ve just said but against halfords in this example. Such a fail can therefore be taken very seriously, rather than taken with a pinch of salt because they’re on a commission drive.
My local garage has just quoted me £300 for a complete handbrake kit, compared to one a bit further away that doesn’t know me quoting £150-£300 based on what is wrong with it. I am not really interested in spending £300 plus unknown extras that now includes a busted wingmirror on a car that only cost me £500 in the first place. I’ve got a finite amount of money and can’t afford any cost overruns here. That’s what I’m trying to avoid, and remain legal in the process.
My decision is to either replace the car with another modeo Y plate or newer for less than £1000 with some ticket and tax left on it OR start paying out for the necassary repairs to get this one through the MOT, taking the chance that “one thing leads to another” and I end up leaving it in the MOT forecourt because I’ve run out of cash halfway through.
Spanking the plastic is not an option, as I cut up my credit cards in 2004 for good. I can’t say I’ve missed them until now, same as I only miss not ever having had a mobile phone when I’m broken down and stuck out all night in the snow - 3 times in the past decade.

[doyoumeanme_1]

Sorry, i didn’t know they had MOT only places. Round here they are ‘fit what we have in stock’ merchants.

[winseer]

DoYouMeanMe?:
Sorry, i didn’t know they had MOT only places. Round here they are ‘fit what we have in stock’ merchants.

Where do they keep all the cars that are queing up to have all this uneccasary work done on them? The layout of the place implies that the cars going there for an MOT are expected to pass rather than fail straight out - no holding areas. It’s a ‘while you wait’ kind of affair. It was also part of the T&C that the car getting the free MOT had to be less than 10 years old when the insurance was taken out, which I barely scraped (timing wise) last year. A different example, You don’t get a big B&Q car park for going to visit your GP, because both you and the GP are expecting “In,Out,Wipe”!

[winseer]

Govnor: “Your car has failed on the big-end bearing, and the gearbox needs to be replaced sir. Just park it across that entrance there, and we’ll have it ready for you early next week!”

Grease Monkey: “Dave! - Cancel all our other MOT’s booked in for today, some arse has parked an old wreck across the entrance bay!”

[winseer]

What do you mean you didn’t know all MOT testers are called Dave?

There’s a fair few referred to as “Arse!” as well!

[philgor]

Winseer:
What do you mean you didn’t know all MOT testers are called Dave?

There’s a fair few referred to as “Arse!” as well!

where i work, there are no tester’s called dave, but we have a philip, jason, paul and a rick. but still no dave .

edit just looked through the testing manual, and the is no requirement to have a dave on the book’s. but we do need an arse on the book’s , which i think we have…

[doyoumeanme_1]

Winseer.

All the Halfords (or Halfrauds as they are better known) round here are new units with the MOT/workshop round the back with shop parking for about 70+ motors at the front and about 30 parking spots round the back.

[winseer]

DoYouMeanMe?:
Winseer.

All the Halfords (or Halfrauds as they are better known) round here are new units with the MOT/workshop round the back with shop parking for about 70+ motors at the front and about 30 parking spots round the back.

I wonder if I should state at the start that I won’t be doing any repairs there regardless of what they find, BUT I’ll be having a full service if if passes…

Where is “Around here” by the way?