My L Reg Sportline just failed Mot due to no Cat?

Can anyone help clear this up Kwik fit just failed my L reg mk1 Sportline saying it should have a cat as it registered in 1993! It has passed 18 years worth of mot's and never had a problem does anyone know the loop hole in this as I don't believe my car is illegal and that vw manufacturered a illegal car for the uk market!

Regards Matt

Why did you take it to Kwik Fit !

No cat on my 93 gti and never been an issue.
Get then to read the rule book again.

I know I hate kwik fit but my friend works there and would do the mot for £30.00
got it sorted my friend at skoda is doing it and checked the rules with his master tech and all is fine just the idiot at kwik fit!

Complain to VOSA, get your money back and they'll lose the licence to carry out MOT's if they a fail a check test.

hi there

First of all I am no expert - so no kicking me if some of this is wrong - there should be some very clever folk on here to confirm this.

But a quick surf of the interweb suggests that cars built before 1st Aug 1992 do not legally require a Cat (please don't confuse this with taking one off a car that originally had one fitted - the rules governing that are different). Cars after 1st Aug 1992 seemingly have to be manufactured with a Cat and have one fitted for the test.

The thrust of this is ….. when exactly was your car manufactured?  Its a bit like road fund licence exempt vehicles (they have to have been manufactured before 1st Jan 1973) - the key thing is when it was made - not when first registered.

so your car could well have been manufactured before 1st Aug 1992 - but easily registerd much later.  I believe the last cab was built on 23rd April 1993 but some cars were still hanging about and weren't registerd until 1995!!

I know that later UK mk1 cabrios having Cats fitted - but they were made by VW like that (presumably after 1st Aug 1992).

I think you need to establish the date your car was made and then as suggested (if before 1st Aug 1992) point out the error of their ways. Your car will have been registered between 1st Aug 1993 and july 31st 1994 - so it will have needed to have been made at least a year earlier - it's quite possible.

To be fiar unless they now their stuff, its a probably very rare that an they came across an L reg VW Golf Sportline and therfore maybe a simple mistake to make.

I hope this helps.  I have seen one this forum somewhere that you can contact VW in Germany and find the exact date your car was manufactured.

regards

Cars registered between '93 and '94 could still have pre '92 spec engines fitted and do not require a cat. The MOT station should be aware which cars these are  

they failed it because it was registered in 93, the rules are manufactured, not registered,
my mate has a mazda registered on 1995, it was built in 1992! (so it also doesnt require a cat)

they're idots, the tester mucked up, and therefore complain to vosa..

think I'm going to complain to vosa and kwik fit as i want compensation for my fuel costs and some gesture of good will for my time which is the thing I'm most annoyed about as we all work such long hours!

If the car didnt have one as standard then it dont need one now.

to be fair the tester is only human,go see him and explain that the car was built without a cat so should be tested as is,if you get vosa involved it will waste a LOT more time and you will be without your car for a day as vosa will do a full inspection and it does go on  
If i did the test i would have known,but were all different  :wink:
Bert

i did explain to him numerous times and the fact that the car had past 17 mot's without a cat as it never came with one, but he didn't want to know! I was also not allowed to speak to him during the mot! just felt like he was determined to fail it!
Will he do this to other people if nothing is done or has he already!

rivage5 said

 cars built before 1st Aug 1992 do not legally require a Cat

There is your get out clause

Cars registered and cars built are two different things! Just Kwik Fit being utter idiots :wink:

Phataz1 said

rivage5 said

 cars built before 1st Aug 1992 do not legally require a Cat

There is your get out clause

Cars registered and cars built are two different things! Just Kwik Fit being utter idiots :wink:

agree with the last sentence,especially the idiots bit  
Bert

not sticking up for kwik fit i got asked the same question once!!! and mines a 82 gti lol this was by a mechanic work collegue at the time haha fool!

This all sounds very typically quikfit, cheap MOT and then look for every last thing to find wrong so they can upsell work….ie sell you a Cat you don't need!  You have to prove when the vehicle was PRODUCED not REGISTERED.  Not sure how you would do that, build sticker in the boot??

The MOT unfortunately is being carried out to the word, and the tester is sadly following the guidelines ….. to the word!

My suggestion would be to get an MOT elsewhere, from a more lateral thinking station, try a local one i.e though recomendation and talk to them before presenting a vehicle at a test station.  Explain the situation and i am sure it can be sorted quickly!  I assume the rest of the car is all A ok??

Assuming the vehicle passes, then take it up with VOSA, if you go through the appeal process with VOSA and Quikfit, you will be there ages and the vehicle will need to be inspected etc!

At the end of the day you just want to drive your cabby in the summer…ere what summer!

Hope this helps

This came up before, cannot find the thread that I replid to then.
kwik fit are not carrying out the MOT to the word. I posted a flow chart from the MOT site. It clearly shows that your cabby does not need a CAT test. Will try and dig the link out.

Cheers for all your replies guys I know it doesn't need a cat test and according to a master tech at skoda the guy clearly doesn't know how to operate the machine! was testing it as a mk3 golf cabriolet!
His whole attitude, the fact that my time and fuel was wasted due to him being incompetent and now I've got to use more time and expense to take it to a competent mot centre has really p*ssed me off and the fact he wouldn't listen to me, I was holding the previous mot certificate in my hand which was done at kwikfit last year with emissions paperwork in my hand!
I will be having strong words with his area manager tomorrow and then I will take it to vosa! normally I wouldn't get wound up at things like this but I'm not prepared to be dealt with in this manor and for others in the future to be!

Oh and the car would of sailed through apart from this with no advisories! and my god did he look as hard as he could to fail it!

Good, at least you are sorted now!  Testing it as a MK3 cabby….top work!

the link for future reference:

http://www.motuk.co.uk/images/cat1.pdf