MOT station passed 3 of my car's tyres illegally. My Position in this?

  • Thread starter Thread starter smr
  • Start date Start date

smr

smr

smr

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
8,753
Location
Leicestershire
Hi all,

I've just chatted about this on IRC but wanted more opinions and view on this please... please bear with the transcript :)

[13:08:52] <smurkej> the mondeo i bought on monday came with a 12 month mot, (passed monday) no advisorys or anything. so went and picked it up. the other day i noticed a small nail in the drivers front tyre, took it to ATS and they tell me that 3 of the tyres excluding the nearside rear need replacing because the tread has worn, so much so that all 3 are illegal ... and also the nearside front tyre has two gashes that have gone down to the core of the tyre .. on the wall
[13:09:32] <smurkej> so where do i stand with it ... the trade seller who sold me the car got it taken to his MOT bloke who has been running for 15 years, and obviously passed the car illegally...
[13:09:44] <smurkej> cos i also got the view of my local MOT garage and they confirmed what ATS Are saying
[13:09:54] <rand0m_> contact the owner..
[13:09:56] <smurkej> the bloke i bought it off is not in atm...
[13:10:03] <rand0m_> wait till he's in
[13:10:11] <smurkej> just spoke to his wife who has taken my details ive explained it all to her
[13:10:24] <smurkej> i did talk to him earlier, and he asked me to get the tread depth of the tyres
[13:10:31] <smurkej> but obv with two independent views theres no point
[13:10:38] <smurkej> they 3 tyres are illegal
[13:10:46] <smurkej> and shouldnt have passed on monday.

IS there anything else I should know/ do ? Thanks for any advice.
 
id probably want to get it checked over to see if anything else had been conveniently missed, unless of course he didnt want you to have his shiny new wheels and tyres and just stuck some duff ones on he had laying around
 
paradigm said:
Just because the car passed its MOT doesn't mean the car you bought had the same wheels/tyres on it ;)

Speak to the guy you bought the car off.
Click to expand...

well that's interesting because I bought my mechanic friend to view the car and he did mention that the rear drivers side may need changing soon because of the tread and he inspects cars like he works in forensics and including myself, my girlfriend and dave, we didn't notice the two cuts/gashes on the passenger front tyre...

but my feeling from his comment (and his) on the rear side tread any the tread on the rest of the tyres was that if it passed the MOT then they're all legal - so when I got the MOT pass cert. I thought that they were all ok! You may be right....
 
paradigm said:
Just because the car passed its MOT doesn't mean the car you bought had the same wheels/tyres on it ;)

Speak to the guy you bought the car off.
Click to expand...

Okay... I went to see the car with my mechanic friend on Saturday evening... The car got MOT'd on the Monday of this week - without wanting to spell it out for you (i'm sure you're intelligent enough to get this) .... we saw the car before and AFTER the MOT...

When we both looked around the car we didn't see any puncture holes in the side of the nearside front tyre (which are there now) and also we did note that the tread had worn slightly on the driver's rear side but figured with it going for the MOT that they would be checked to see if it was illegal anyway - and indeed if any of the other tyres were illegal.

I took the car to my local MOT station earlier this afternoon and the guy who deals with me there took the front driver's side off to have a good look and measure the tread. So, he gets out his tread measuring ruler and measured 3 quarters of the centre of the tyre where the tread should be 1.6 mm. There isn't any tread as it has "worn excessively" so he cannot even measure it.

Basically him and the guys at ATS (who I took the car to earlier) say that there's no way on God's Green Earth that the driver's front tyre should have passed, let alone the passenger front with the two rips in on the wall. So all in all, sounds like if the seller / MOT station can't compromise and give me the money for 3 new tyres (as ATS and MOT bloke have said I NEED) then the Ministry are gonna have a field day (and the MOT station that passed me will soon have his nice "reputable" 15 year business saying bye bye.

An MOT Station passes cars to test they are road worthy. I have kids for God's sake. If something happened to me because I've been mislead into having the thumbs up to drive I wouldn't be able to write here what would happen next. That's how serious this is and how annoyed I am.
 
dont trust other people. judge with your own eyes whether its safe

and then get on to black cirles.com and get some new rubber cos if 3 are illegal youd have to be insane to drive it.
 
smr said:
Okay... I went to see the car with my mechanic friend on Saturday evening... The car got MOT'd on the Monday of this week - without wanting to spell it out for you (i'm sure you're intelligent enough to get this) .... we saw the car before and AFTER the MOT...
Click to expand...

takes 5mins to change wheels with an air gun, they could have easily just swapped before the MOT and back after. Not like its going to be difficult to find a set of mondeo wheels.

I don't you are going to get much joy from this, buyer beware and all that. You bought a car with worn consumables, and it looks like you knew it. I put all kinds of cheap crap rubber on my cars but i wouldent trust a tyre that just passed an mot.
 
Well...

I've spoken to the seller, he wants the tread measurements of the 3 naffed tyres. So I rang my local MOT dude, asked him, and he laughed... said he can't measure something where there's no tread. So Rang the seller back up, he's asked for it in writing. Gonna get the MOT dude to write this out on letter headed paper in the morning and send it off to the seller first class, this is to compare records with the MOT station that passed the car..

IF I don't get compo'd or the tyres exchanged for decent ones the Ministry is getting a phone call, and boy, are they gonna have a field day with this one :D
 
tbh they cannot prove much, the mot mechanic could turn around and say well the ones i saw were ok, and as its a private sale the seller is under no obligation to do anything, sold as seen and such, unless he said to you that the tyres were all legal (in which case you would have looked).

i would see what you get, but if you fail put it down to one of lifes slaps in the face and dont do it again.
 
I got the impression its a trader, in which case I'd just threaten to get the police involved as given your evidence he has either swapped tyres for MOT, or MOT is a well dodgey one - my advise would also be to MOT the car yourself and maybe see what else crops up.
I was also thinking your tyre place could be overselling "yes mate they all need changing" / smirk / chuckle, but it sounds like they are borked.
even if it was private you can still use the small claims court.
 
Been in a similar situation with a car my other half purchased last year from a trader. Was MOT'd after she had agreed to purchase the car, however just before we got the car home one of the power-steering pipes burst which we put down to one of those things. It wasnt untill we started to fix this problem that we noticed a 3/4 inch hole in the sill big enough to stick your fingers in with wiring clearly visible and the horn didnt work (which after looking at the wiring wasnt a supprise as it was a complete shambles). Corrosion defects have a 3 month period from the date of the MOT if you wish to complain etc, VOSA couldnt give a crap that the garage had blatantly passed the car just so the dealer could sell it. Had an independant have a look at the car and he was bemused as to how it passed the MOT. Never again will I buy a car without giving it a proper looking over. By the sounds of things your dealer clearly knows he has been caught out by trying to fob you off with measurements and will no doubt try to claim that the damage etc was caused after the sale.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom