I thought that an MOT has a minimum time the car must remain in the garage. I'm sure my MOT man said the test car must be in the garage something like 40 minutes. He's a good indi that so I'd have no reason to doubt him.
Online MOT service scam?
I thought that an MOT has a minimum time the car must remain in the garage. I'm sure my MOT man said the test car must be in the garage something like 40 minutes. He's a good indi that so I'd have no reason to doubt him.
Soldato
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- 27 Mar 2013
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I believe that only 1 test can be done per hour, and it can't be overridden I.e. if one takes 5 mins, they can't start till an hour has passed.
Associate
@pigeonguyuk you want a garage to cut corners on a safety check for the sake of some money?
Caporegime
Bit of an over reach for somebody using council MOT centres to avoid being ripped off ?
It was the part where he explained taking advantage of their workload to get a pass certificate for a car that had a failure worthy fault on it I think.
Associate
Very big overreaction. Of course I don't want corners cut and potentially a life threating defect being missed, but it can happen. Council MOT works are stretched especially here in NI MOT wait times can exceed 8 weeks at times.
MOT is really a way for the government to make money out of people. an MOT only states your car was road legal at the time of testing. You could drive down the road , hit a pot hole and snap a spring an hour later and be pulled by police and charged for a defective vehicle.
Business try to make money so those that offer MOT's and servicing/repairs will try to upsell other products and services. I had Quickfit try to tell me I needed 4 replacement disks and pads when I went in for a puncture repair. The said "the current ones were badly worn and didn't meet manufacture specs. the car was less than 2 years old and under 10K miles" they just seen a young kid at the time on R plates and though let try it on he wont know any better.
No different when ringing most auto parts stores. Most will offer the "Brand" part that has most profit until you ask for a budget range or something cheaper.
Associate
@pigeonguyuk, as @Kenai said it was the bit where you implied that you'd like someone to work quicker so that they wouldn't spot items that would otherwise fail you that I was trying to highlight. I agree with your general issue that some garages will flag items that are marginal or not really a fail to try to sell you consumables.
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Caporegime
The last time I used my local council test centre (Knutton Lane, Newcastle, Staffordshire) was with my e46 325i, they had the car for over an hour and were extremely thorough, he even gave me a separate piece of paper with some minor advice that he didn’t deem worthy of an official advisory.
The testers are the same guys who maintain the Councils vehicles, it’s more than their jobs worth to be lax or miss anything, but, they’ve absolutely no incentive to fail something that isn’t an actual failure item.
Man of Honour
An MOT test doesn't have a specific time slot but in my experience takes 30-60 minutes.
Don’t agree with this. Although an annoyance to me as someone with old cars requiring mot tests each year, I feel that they are very important. They are the only thing which most people ever get done to a car unless forced to by a complete breakdown. Just look at countries which do not mandate a roadworthiness test, we do not want to be like them.
Associate
if it wasn't a money making exercise then the following exemptions wouldn't exist. If it was about safety ALL vehicles would be checked and/or would be at a mileage interval rather than yearly
Exempt vehicles
Other vehicles that don’t need an MOT include:
- cars and motorcycles made before 1960
- goods vehicles powered by electricity
- tractors
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![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
What? That is a nonsensical point. The MOT scheme makes the government barely a penny, its likely it is a net cost rather than an income generator. The income mostly goes to the garages performing the test.
Those exemptions are purely sensible - a tractor travels at very low speed between fields, it is not necessary nor practical to expect it to travel for an MOT test every year nor does it serve any real purpose. Ditto electric goods vehicles (ie, milk floats).
How on earth does exempting certain vehicles, reducing potential revenue, prove its a money making scheme?
If using a government run test centre and repair service was mandated, THAT would be a money making scheme.
I do kinda see his point about older vehicles not needing an mot though. Seems kinda weird. Also I've had issues with the council test centre in Edinburgh, so nowhere is perfect. They failed my car on rear brake imbalance, had it tested in 2 other places and both said it was well within tolerance. So meh, lottery like every service nowadays.
In conclusion, I got my money back. Got it MOT'd at a different place and the front pads and discs did need done. I even got the rear drum brake shoes replaced, since they'd never been done. Total cost around £330 including the MOT. Not the absolute best price I could have got, but at least they were honest.
Commissario
They still have to be road legal and roadworthy though (so if stopped by the police/VOSA etc and a fault found the driver can be prosecuted and the vehicle required to be towed away if really bad), and vehicles that are nearly 60 years old are very unlikely to be in the hands of the casual idiot who doesn't care about maintenance.
The number of such vehicles on the road is going to be absolutely tiny, especially as most will only be bought out for special occasions due to their rarity and often difficulties/cost of keeping them running.
Also the "goods vehicles powered by electricity" IIRC basically refers to the old milk floats, which were well known for their massive top speed
and again have to still be roadworthy.I suspect if that specific exemption hasn't been amended to allow for new style electric goods vehicles to need testing, it will be soon given the likes of UPS have all electric/hybrid delivery vans in some areas*.
Given the number of numpties who don't even check their tyres or washer fluids between MOT's (and then get surprised that their far has failed because it's got a damaged tyre, dead bulbs, handbrake that doesn't work etc), a yearly check at least gets those cars off the road/fixed for a while, I dread to think how bad some cars would get without that check.
*I've seen them a few times in Milton Keynes in the past, and I think they are using them increasingly in London.
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