the maoster:
weeto:
Always pays to have a mate that does MOTs.+1. My last van may or may not have passed it’s last 3 MOT’s without leaving the company car park. Allegedly.
I know someone whose car has passed four UK MOTs despite having been in Spain since 2012 and never having left the country. 
mdourish:
I took my car to halfraud last year they gave me 2 pages of fails so took it to another garage who just does mot’s the car passed with 1 advisory.Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
Halfrauds … then you got what you deserved … 
BUT the Halfords fail sheet is automatically sent to the DVLA at Swansea and entered on their database so if a pass certificate is entered shortly afterwards they (if they check) they may might start to wonder if something dodgy is going on there… I wont even trust their people to change a headlight bulb let alone do an MOT !!!
Took car to halfrauds for the free brake check, according to them my car which is only 4 years old is dangerous and they gave me a form saying my car is not safe to be used on the road along with a quote of all parts and work that needs doing, 3 pages long and totalling nearly £2400 but they said not to worry as you can pay monthly! Took it to another garage as I new it only needed new back brakes, and £110 later all sorted.
Stay away from the big boys
Do you think the spanners are on commission? 
Tuckert92:
Took car to halfrauds for the free brake check, according to them my car which is only 4 years old is dangerous and they gave me a form saying my car is not safe to be used on the road along with a quote of all parts and work that needs doing, 3 pages long and totalling nearly £2400 but they said not to worry as you can pay monthly! Took it to another garage as I new it only needed new back brakes, and £110 later all sorted.Stay away from the big boys
Blimus! That place really does sound like Halfrauds don’t it?
There was me thinking I’m just having my conspiracy theory head working overtime as usual…
I’ve got my eyes on a car to buy right now, but ideally I want to take delivery of it late on 31st so I can tax & insure it first thing in the morning.
I can’t drive it away without taxing it and insuring it first, and the insurers won’t let me have two lots of insurance overlapping. I’ve got to pay the transfer fee from one to the other or I can pay a cancel fee to stop the old outright before taking out the new. Not much bloody good if I’ve got to do anything to the new purchase whilst I still want to fall back on my old car that’s still within it’s tax, insurance, and MOT. It’s only the tax that runs out at midnight on 31st.
I’ve got little hope of selling in an illiquid market by then, so I’ll find it far easier just to take the three-figures I’ve been offered for scrap for the old car, taken away from me on the morning of 1st hopefully. A certificate of destruction issued straight away (as is standard nowadays) means I won’t be getting any tickets or over zealous uniforms crowding around my car at 08:01 wanting to know why I’ve not taxed it for another month…
The insurance stays in place until transferred to the other car, and I’m not driving the other car until that’s done. I’ve already done a test drive within the vendor’s private estate, and satisfied myself that it’s a runner etc. It’s already MOTed until next year.
I want to avoid paying overlapping taxes for months already paid for by the vendor in the case of the car I’m buying, and I don’t want to pay for another months’ tax when I’ve stopped using the old one by the evening of the 31st. It’ll be a shame to see the old car go for scrap in the end, but I’'m sick of being told it won’t pass it’s MOT unless I have daft amounts of work done on it when there’s only small things I’m not worried about (like temperature digital display inaccurate) and nothing big that I actually believe is wrong. (Got told my water pump was gone this past week, but I’ve been using it fine since then, even in the current heat, no water leaking, temp needle rising to mid position as always, no sign of overheating)
In future, I’ll try to find the happy medium between a MOT station that can “put it right” if need be, but won’t make up any bulls hit advisories that’ll make the car easily uneconomical to fix. The dictatorship of MOT garages indeed!
All I want when I buy a car is one that has an MOT on it - and I can drive it without it falling to bits. I usually get that too, so I am used to getting my own way. Now to do the same with the “industry” in future, thanks to Osbourne’s stealth tax of charging both ends when a car is sold on. 
It’s actually quite a good economy when I’m spending £400-£500 for my old banger replacements each time, always with 10-12 months MOT, and I’ve already taken it for a test drive on a private estate to make sure I’m satisfied that it works. You can only be so careful though. 
As scrap, I’ve been getting £105-£135 each time these past 3 years, changing the car every year when I can’t get it through another MOT of course.
Runs like a sewing machine, has an MOT when I get it - but ‘cannot pass another one’. What a load of cobblers these current tests are! Still, it’s the cheapest I can get it, providing I don’t get ponced about by someone who keeps my car for whatever reason “sorry we’re too busy to release it back to you today/Sorry we’ve had to report that it’s producing dimethyl mercury, asbestos, GM food vapours, and hydrogen cyanide out of the exhaust, and you cannot take it away without paying £(cost you paid for car multiplied by chancellor of exchequer’s age” 
Tuckert92:
Took car to halfrauds for the free brake check, according to them my car which is only 4 years old is dangerous and they gave me a form saying my car is not safe to be used on the road along with a quote of all parts and work that needs doing, 3 pages long and totalling nearly £2400 but they said not to worry as you can pay monthly! Took it to another garage as I new it only needed new back brakes, and £110 later all sorted.Stay away from the big boys
I only had to have the back brakes fixed on the one I bought a year ago next week. That’s the car purchased, insured, taxed, and repaired with change out of a grand for a year’s motoring.
I notice you’ve got adverts for financing even on buying the cheapest of cars these days as well… What is the world coming to?
Thanks for the posts anyway folks… I’ll let you know how my military planning went at the end of the week.
biggriffin:
Before presenting your car for test, check as much as you physical can, e.g. tyres,lights,wipers front AND rear, screenwash,
Rear screen washers/wipers are not checked as part of the MoT test.
Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
Tuckert92:
Took car to halfrauds for the free brake check, according to them my car which is only 4 years old is dangerous and they gave me a form saying my car is not safe to be used on the road along with a quote of all parts and work that needs doing, 3 pages long and totalling nearly £2400 but they said not to worry as you can pay monthly! Took it to another garage as I new it only needed new back brakes, and £110 later all sorted.Stay away from the big boys
I can confirm from personal experience Halfrauds will never get any servicing or mot work from me. And a Kwikfit depot gave me a ridiculous quote to replace an exhaust claiming it was so expensive because it takes 6 hours to replace!
My local garages free MOT with a service or no charge for a failure providing they carry out the work required
lolipop:
My local garages free MOT with a service or no charge for a failure providing they carry out the work required
Wonderful! If they’re honest… 
weeto:
Always pays to have a mate that does MOTs.
Or the garage that services the older trucks that are out of main dealer contracts.
I have used “we only mot” for about the last 8 years for my MOT’s.
They only do MOT’s as the name suggests so they have no vested interest in failing the car but they have failed my car a couple of times.
The no pass no fee only applies to cars under 10 years though so older cars still have to pay if it fails.
That’ll be the day eh, when we can find out for free if a car is worth spending money on to fix or not…
For now, the same old applies in the world of banger racing that I inhabit.
I’ve never owned a car under 10 years old in my entire life.
No freebie MOTs for yours truly then.
I can’t even buy another car over the bank holiday weekend anyways, because I cannot insure it online to drive it away. The on-line insurance is always “There is a problem, please call our call center in office hours” whenever I try to insure ANY car. When I finally got around to doing it in the past, they, too explain that the “on line” thing is there for “cars under 10 years old” and that the ‘problem’ always turns out to be in the end “Sorry bud, yours ain’t”.
Winseer:
cav551:
The problem with VoSA’s interpretation is that they want the tester to pass everything until the point when he has written out the test certificate, which is when they decide it should have failed.
Ah good. So it wasnt just me wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean
Yeh, I’ve got splinters in my fingers trying to figure that one out. 
Ask one of the testers at your local garage. Some of the defects Vosa expect to be passed or ‘passed and advised’ are ridiculous. The same vehicle checked 10 minutes later by themselves would be declared unfit.
cav551:
Ask one of the testers at your local garage. Some of the defects Vosa expect to be passed or ‘passed and advised’ are ridiculous. The same vehicle checked 10 minutes later by themselves would be declared unfit.
Are you referring to something like the old “Driving exam quota” thing, where if you took a test Monday am or Friday PM you’d probably have been failed before ‘leading the way to your vehicle’ with the examiner?
Having been failed twice by the same examiner on that basis, I asked for my third test to be in a different town outright, so I couldn’t possibly get that same examiner again. I did the third test, and passed with the comment “I have no idea why you’ve failed this test twice in the last year, as your instructor informs me”…
Wrong face, wrong place at the wrong time. I even heard my original “Over zealous” described as “has a propensity to pass anything wearing a skirt all day monday, and runs out of pass slots often by PM thursday. Anyone turning up Friday for a test like you did twice - has been selected by the system to have thrown their money away”.
From the files
“Winseer: A study in how some random ex-Grammar school kid became a conspiracy theorist”
cav551:
Ask one of the testers at your local garage. Some of the defects Vosa expect to be passed or ‘passed and advised’ are ridiculous. The same vehicle checked 10 minutes later by themselves would be declared unfit.
Tyres are a good example. The MOT rules and police rules are different. So you could get a pass, then get stopped by the police on the way home and get 3points/£100 fine.
Wildy:
cav551:
Ask one of the testers at your local garage. Some of the defects Vosa expect to be passed or ‘passed and advised’ are ridiculous. The same vehicle checked 10 minutes later by themselves would be declared unfit.Tyres are a good example. The MOT rules and police rules are different. So you could get a pass, then get stopped by the police on the way home and get 3points/£100 fine.
In what way are they different?
Roymondo:
Wildy:
cav551:
Ask one of the testers at your local garage. Some of the defects Vosa expect to be passed or ‘passed and advised’ are ridiculous. The same vehicle checked 10 minutes later by themselves would be declared unfit.Tyres are a good example. The MOT rules and police rules are different. So you could get a pass, then get stopped by the police on the way home and get 3points/£100 fine.
In what way are they different?
The MOT specifies a minimum tread depth. This is across 3/4 of the tread width, not the tyre width. The only other proviso being there is no chord showing. AFAIK the police rules are minimum tread depth across 3/4 of the tyre width and crucially that the remainder must have visible tread showing.
Section 4.1 Here