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

[smr]

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.

 

[smr]

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.

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....

 

[smr]

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.

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.

 

[smr]

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