MOT

Booked my cabby in for a MOT on Friday (as the forecast is dry ) - having the gear linkage renewed with a new boot too! just to make it solid. When i went under the car last year i noticed the boot had a split in it. so what the hell..
Hoping it will pass with no advisories… 

I hope you have better luck than me!.  I took mine in for MOT after being off the road 21/2 years on Friday 13th - should've known better!  It broke down on the way there, then when I tried to pop the bonnet the cable snapped - aargh!  Managed to get the bonnet up with the help of a builder who was building a garden wall.  Anyway, got it running and arrived at the MOT spot 15 mins late.  They still MOT'd it and it passed.  Just a couple of advisories re rusty discs as it had been stood.  So it all turned out well in the end.  I have taxed it now from tomorrow so will be glad to be using for a bit.

Fingers crossed for you buddy

Yes so far I'm keeping 3.. have started to strip my donor sold 1.6 Eg engine and box to stevee on this forum  so that 150£ back in the kitty. Was working but gb had couple of holes in bell housing and a 4 speed.  Sportline I took for price for painting 1800 quid. Means if done the car would be costing to date 9000…and only insured for 5500. Love it though. But where do you stop paying for things. Oil service and plugs done. . Green cabby waiting for roof but driven 100 mile in may. White waiting for roof driven 30 mile in may. Sportline 1000mile since Feb 

Passed MOT  2 advisories - slight play in rear wheel bearing & rear suspension caps are corroding - will enlighten you more when i pick it up as to what exactly that is… i know there's covers over the dampers so perhaps it's those… also, as we speak, having gear linkage bush set/rod renewed too.. 

I once had my old GTI in for an MoT after a long spell of being off the road laid up for a number of repairs/refurb etc. I was unsure of the overall mechanical condition because it had not been driven on the roads for a little while and I told the tester at the time. He was underwhelmed and just wanted to do modern cars etc. In the end it overheated (because it was left running for ages, and the fan didn't work properly) and I abandoned the test part way through. I let it cool down and drove it home about half an hour later, but it took another few weeks to sort a bunch of niggles out.

I can't remember (it was a while ago) but I think I did pay, but I knew I might need to stop the test if the car misbehaved.

To be honest, the MoT tester wasn't quite right but stuck with that garage for a bit due to a recommendation and a warning that the other garage in the village was worse (its not, its better). For example, I've had some lemons over the years as well as good cars, he thought he was doing me a favour by failing an old car on a bunch of items. So I went and worked through the list and fixed those items and it went out of time for a partial retest, so he MOT'd it again and found more stuff 2nd time he had missed or not put down on the 1st test……another fail, more money etc.

I think part of the problem is, a DIY maintained car only really sees the inside of a garage/workshop once a year, its not like the other customers who are happy to trust the garage and have a bunch of work done, maybe a service then MoT for £150 or so, then trust the MoT fail items and let the garage do it. For example last MoT I had done there was an advisory on a tyre. It was literally 50% on the edge, and 80% across most of the width, it clearly had a lot of life left in it. Some people would have trusted the garage, not looked at the tyre and had it replaced.

It would be interesting from someone in the trade to say whether a garage can make profit simply doing MoTs (I suspect they can but its quite marginal) or whether they need the "extra work" of servicing, replacing worn items and other MoT related stuff to make a decent living.

Every year my tester says there is a little play in the rear wheel bearings, but he knows that it is normal for our cars, compared to modern types. Some people advise using local council MOT centres because they don't do repairs, so have nothing to gain by failing a car unnecessarily.