Beware cheap MoTs

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Wheelsnuts

MB Enthusiast
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Sep 27, 2014
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1,448
Location
Up in the North East
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W246
Took my wife's Ford Ka for its MoT last week. A local garage was offering MoTs for £29. The car is an 08 plate with 28,000 miles on the clock and I gave it a quick once-over before taking it in, so I thought it should have been OK. However, I got a phone call to say the car would fail on the front suspension and rear axel bushes: cost £330 to repair. I told them to leave it alone and I would pick the car up and think about whether it was worth laying out that sort of cash. When I picked the car up I didn't get a failure notice and no bill.
Funny, I thought, and next day took the car to a garage I had used before with no problems but £40 for MoT. You guessed it: passed with flying colours and I was assured there was no wear on either front suspension or rear bushes!
The following day, believe it or not, the owner of the first garage phones me up to say that, if I wanted to sell the car as it was, he was prepared to buy it for a modest sum because he was looking for a cheap run-about for his daughter! I won't relate my response!
Moral: beware cheap MoTs and the garages offering them. :mad:
 
I would be back to the first garage to demand my MOT fail certificate. Then I'd flourish the pass certificate in his face and tell him he is a crook.
 
Reportable?

(Although I guess without a failure certificate there's no evidence?)
 
How do you stand legally now?

Is the car registered with DVLA as a pass or fail?

There is an online check for insurance and MOT on their website.

Seems odd that if my car failed I could just tout it around a few garages until it passed.
 
How do you stand legally now?

Is the car registered with DVLA as a pass or fail?

There is an online check for insurance and MOT on their website.

Seems odd that if my car failed I could just tout it around a few garages until it passed.

It didn't get a fail: they just told me that it would fail. However, if had been registered as a fail, I suppose I could well have had the alleged faults corrected before I took it in for its second MoT? :D
 
I recently bought a car with a clean MOT, from the MOT station next door to the vendor, a private seller.

My obligatory garage inspection revealed three separate (and clear) fail items.

The MOT is a bit of a raffle at times, I always pay the local garage a proper sum and they do a good job - I don't want a safety item being missed, but they've never found something questionable.
 
It didn't get a fail: they just told me that it would fail. However, if had been registered as a fail, I suppose I could well have had the alleged faults corrected before I took it in for its second MoT? :D

You are allowed to drive the with a fail to a pre-booked MOT.

So you did nothing wrong!
 
The MOT is just a certificate that says a car was road-worthy at a certain time on a certain day, I've known people swap over tyres for an hour just to get a pass
 
I had exactly the same... Cheap MOT and my brand new rear tyre that had been fitted maybe 20miles previous to the MOT had a nasty gash in the sidewall, luckily the garage happened to have the exact tyre, I told them to **** right off, refused to pay and left. You live and learn...
 
I took advantage of free MOT offered by Mercedes Stratford for my very old E230 210 estate .. it was worth around £700.

Mercedes told me it needed £4000 worth of work to pass MOT.

I took the car somewhere else, all it needed was some welding on an exhaust bracket to pass the MOT.
 
The last MoT I had done was on my Porsche and it was priced at £27. It ended up costing me over £40k! It was at my local MB dealer in Peterborough. They treated me very well, and didn't suggest any work needed on the Porsche, so I was happy to go back to them to buy my new C350.
 
The last MoT I had done was on my Porsche and it was priced at £27. It ended up costing me over £40k! It was at my local MB dealer in Peterborough. They treated me very well, and didn't suggest any work needed on the Porsche, so I was happy to go back to them to buy my new C350.

I used to use a place called "just MOT's"
I use the logic that if they are not desperate to make up repairs, as won't be doing them, there is less chance of being conned.
As I do all my own work, ie welding etc anyway, I make a point of telling any garage that I will be doing my own work when I take it in.
They will then know that if they invent something, they will be found out. Works well for me.
My ex took a car in just before she met me. They said it needed £600 of welding. When she asked where, they said it was high up under the car.
I told her I would do it. When I went with her to pick the car up, I asked where the welding was needed (she had had some done the previous year as well). Garage then strangely got confused and mumbled some excuse about a trainee had got the car mixed up with another one, and it had actually passed.
While with her, I found no evidence of any previous welding having been done. She never went to that garage again.

Neil
 
As another thought £27 seems very cheap. I think the actual fee the garage has to pay is more than that? so they have to find faults to even make a profit.
Must be tempting to invent/create faults, to get work?

Neil
 
I've been going to the same MoT place for about ten years.

Last 4 or 5 yrs he's been discounting it heavily, when I asked him why it was so cheap he said that it was because a guy a mile away was taking custom with cheap MoT's.

I've ever had any serious problems flagged up. I guess it's not just about price.
 
Reportable?

(Although I guess without a failure certificate there's no evidence?)

Still worth reporting the sharp practice to the VOSA inspector for the area . Local trading standards would be another good place to visit .

This is straightforward dishonesty , the garage clearly tried to give the impression the car had faults it did not , either to drum up unnecessary work , or to try to give the impression the car was worthless and obtain it below market value .

If this story corroborates other similar complaints , VOSA will sometimes submit a pre-checked test vehicle anonymously ; if it is not dealt with correctly the garage can be struck off .

I can guarantee VOSA would be very interested to hear of this complaint .
 
I used to use a place called "just MOT's"
I use the logic that if they are not desperate to make up repairs, as won't be doing them, there is less chance of being conned.
As I do all my own work, ie welding etc anyway, I make a point of telling any garage that I will be doing my own work when I take it in.
They will then know that if they invent something, they will be found out. Works well for me.
My ex took a car in just before she met me. They said it needed £600 of welding. When she asked where, they said it was high up under the car.
I told her I would do it. When I went with her to pick the car up, I asked where the welding was needed (she had had some done the previous year as well). Garage then strangely got confused and mumbled some excuse about a trainee had got the car mixed up with another one, and it had actually passed.
While with her, I found no evidence of any previous welding having been done. She never went to that garage again.

Neil

Our vehicle workshops , which look after our fire appliances along with the rest of the fleet , carry out MOT's for the fleet and , when they have spare capacity , will carry out MOT's for members of the public . Since they do not carry out repairs there is no incentive to 'invent' defects .
 

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