The grumpy thread

[Negative Creep]

Haven't tried it myself, but I have heard the local council's MOT places can be good, since hey don't do repairs and there's no reason to make faults up

[bub2006]

I take my motors to the local we only mot place. Always been straight up and obviously have no reason to fail for things that some more unscrupulous garages would try and get you to re mortgage your house to pay the bill.

[Mr Livered]

There was an mot garage I used in Cambridge that was terrible. When I went to puck the car up they'd not only failed it on loads of things, but they'd already priced up the repairs it needed. That was thoughtful of them eh? It came to over £500, nothing major but loads of smallish faults.

 

I drove it to another garage out in the fens and it passed with only two advisories.

[cort16]

The thing is, it's the guy I rent my lockup off who took it to them and he takes all his customers cars there for an MOT so you'd think they'd be straight up with him but results vary.

I've had a look for a council mot station but can't find one. There is an MOT only place in Ayr I might take it to. The tyres and suspension arms I'm happy to deal with but pressing in 3 new wheel bearings makes me thing I should maybe just try to sell it on before the mot expires. Am I really going to get that money back if I mot it?

[Cavcraft]

Haven't tried it myself, but I have heard the local council's MOT places can be good, since hey don't do repairs and there's no reason to make faults up

 

 

This. Also some tyre/exhaust places are good too, as it's only really in their interest to fail it on things you can see are wrong. Except **I* F**, of course, who are just twats anyway.

[skattrd]

I'm not sure what model of Jag yours is cort16, but some of them have wheel bearings that come as a complete hub. Easier to fit for a diy type person, but a bit  dearer to buy.

[cort16]

Cheers skattrd, it's a 308 XJR. I looked online at that and a 2nd hand hub is £90 compared to £20 for the wheel bearing. If I can get the hubs off the garage next door will press them in.

The really costly item looks like the wishbones.

[Timewaster]

There was an mot garage I used in Cambridge that was terrible. When I went to puck the car up they'd not only failed it on loads of things, but they'd already priced up the repairs it needed. That was thoughtful of them eh? It came to over £500, nothing major but loads of smallish faults.

I drove it to another garage out in the fens and it passed with only two advisories.

I'm guessing Lex Autocentre?

[alf892]

Surely you could just look at the things he has failed it on and decide yourself.............if no fault apparent go for test somewhere else or if points are justified then fix and retest.

 

Just dismiising him as a cunt seems a bit harsh without at least having a look for yourself. The next tester might have other 'pet fails' (IF that is what you've got).................and it will cost to find out!

[beko1987]

Found a letter advising me that my car doesnt have a parking permit flapping under my wiper at lunchtime. So I wrote an email to the security bloke asking if they had any other option than sticking it to the glass, as they melt into it through experience. He replied saying I should just leave it on the cardboard backing, and leave it on the dash.

 

He obviously missed the point I made about things sliding or blowing off my dash due to its design. Decided to file his email under C for cunts and carry on not having a parking permit. 

 

The letter (standard things that gets wheeled out twice a year, its been photocopied so many times its fading itself) threatens clamping with a release fee. We are on private land, should I feel safe telling them to fuck off and do one?

 

Oh, and Pistonheads, fuck them. Replied to a thread about missing wheel bolts, regailing my story about the xm missing one for most of its life and having been fine and someone took offence to it. Although I await him being torn apart for being a prick, I'm not going to post on there anymore, jumped up pricks.

 

Could we have a shed of the week feature on here? But rather than it being a grand, make it £450 or something fun? (yes I know about the tat thread etc)

[trigger]

That shed thread idea would be great! I'm shit at putting pen to paper though so would struggle to write anything worth reading.

[Bobthebeard]

This.....

On my recently purchased 1984 944. "Sills professionally replaced and all welding done for MOT."

 

Poked the rust blisters in the 'professionally replaced' sills, and holes got steadily larger, got grinder out and... Oh look what inner crispiness lies beneath the outer.

Arse.

[Cavcraft]

Yahoo:. What the fuck have you done to mail? It's eye bleedingly awful and seemingly it can't be changed back to how it was.

[Bobthebeard]

Yahoo:. What the fuck have you done to mail? It's eye bleedingly awful and seemingly it can't be changed back to how it was.

Agreed!

Yahoo (aptly named) took over Sky Email recently. It is now officially horrible to behold and a shadow of its former self. Also it is shit.

[mattblack]

Found a letter advising me that my car doesnt have a parking permit flapping under my wiper at lunchtime. So I wrote an email to the security bloke asking if they had any other option than sticking it to the glass, as they melt into it through experience. He replied saying I should just leave it on the cardboard backing, and leave it on the dash.

 

He obviously missed the point I made about things sliding or blowing off my dash due to its design. Decided to file his email under C for cunts and carry on not having a parking permit. 

 

The letter (standard things that gets wheeled out twice a year, its been photocopied so many times its fading itself) threatens clamping with a release fee. We are on private land, should I feel safe telling them to fuck off and do one?

 

Oh, and Pistonheads, fuck them. Replied to a thread about missing wheel bolts, regailing my story about the xm missing one for most of its life and having been fine and someone took offence to it. Although I await him being torn apart for being a prick, I'm not going to post on there anymore, jumped up pricks.

 

Could we have a shed of the week feature on here? But rather than it being a grand, make it £450 or something fun? (yes I know about the tat thread etc)

A place where I used to work bought out parking permits for employees, no idea why as we weren't near anywhere that some random would want to park up and walk to. Anyway, we were supposed to stick them on the screen but as I was running 2 cars at the time I used to leave mine the wrong way up in the dead centre of the dash so the security bod had to crick his neck to see it.

[Lord Sterling]

So, I had a fairly good day, I got rid of my old computer after stripping the hard drives and CD/DVD rom. I submitted my other computer (which I swapped a car stereo for) for upgrade as well as Sis's laptop for repairs. I got my car a little more tidied up and what do I come home to? Bastard little chavs standing right outside leaning up against my gate hanging around, one of them tried to open my own gate for me.

 

I'll be grabbing the older brother for word, I've had enough of this.

[Tetleysmooth]

Yet another reason I'm pissed off with driving. I'm in my lorry as I write this. Delivering to Colchester store tonight. You leave the A12 and go up the Avenue of Remembrance at the end of which is a roundabout. I went straight on only to be faced on the other side by two geezers in a Focus coming straight at me on my side of the road. The driver was jumping the queue on his side of the road. What do you reckon happened? He gave me a friendly wave while saying sorry. Nope. I got the middle finger. Just watched a cabbie and a cyclist jump the red light at the Hythe level crossing. Bloody close to having his car clouted by the barrier. WHY?

[trigger]

That's Colchester for you, Some total bellends drive there! And that Hythe crossing is for buses only, I've seen loads of people knicked for crossing that.

[Negative Creep]

That's Colchester for you, Some total bellends drive there! And that Hythe crossing is for buses only, I've seen loads of people knicked for crossing that.

 

 

You forget that minicabs and cyclists are exempt from all road laws

[phil_lihp]

Oi, not all of us!  It makes my blood boil when I see other cyclists behaving like that - I've actually been sat on my bike at red lights and been passed by a lycra-clad muppet who's decided the rules don't apply to him and expressed my feelings verbally but to no avail.  Unfortunately, it's the few who do that sort of thing who draw attention to themselves and then end up marking every cyclist out as a twat.  

 

It is my belief that if you make a conscious decision to do stupid, inconsiderate things, you do rather invite the consequences, although that applies to many things, not just cycling.

[DSdriver]

Flickr coupons have just attached themselves to my flickr page and are stopping me from clicking on my pics. I have downloaded adblocker plus and run malwearbytes but the fucker is still there. Any clues on how to get shot of it apart from the probable conclusion of me closing my account?

[twosmoke300]

Further to alfs post ref the mot failure. It may have failed because those bits are fucked! As an ex tester it does bug me to hear people slagging them off before they have even checked it. The reason for the rear rear business is cos that's how the system makes you enter it. I agree there are some bad testers out there but most would rather pass a car cos it's less grief.

[vulgalour]

Now my petrol tank is leaking.  I wouldn't be massively grumpy about this but for the fact that the breaker I took stuff off had a brand new tank on it.

[HillmanImp]

I remember welding up the hole in the petrol tank on the GT6. I had drained it, washed it out and left it for days but was still expecting to blow up as soon as I created the arc. Thakfully I didn't and lived to tell the tale.

[vulgalour]

I'll drop it when I drop the axle and sort them both at the same time.  The recent issues have all arisen since the car hasn't been in use so I'm blaming it on that.  Man logic.

[wuvvum]

I use the garage in the village for all my car MoTs now.  They're fair, without being unduly harsh or lax.  They know that they're not going to get any of the repair work, so there's no reason for them to make up faults (not that I think they would anyway).  Also, if the car only fails on one or two very minor things, they tell me to take it home, fix the faults and bring it back and the tester has a quick look and then prints me out a certificate.

 

The garage in the next village up is probably more lenient, but it has the drawback that I can't walk home while the car's being tested, and also they charge more - £45 instead of £35.

 

I don't post on Pistonheads much, but they almost caused me a load of hassle when my SVX appeared on there as Shed of the Week, and the chap who'd just bought it off eBay (for more than it was advertised for in the C&C advert that SOTW linked to) spotted it and wasn't too impressed.  Not my fault though - he bid what he wanted to bid and that was that.

[cort16]

I wouldn't have minded the MOT guy failing my Jag but did he have to drown all those kittens and andrex puppies i had in the boot??

 

The last time the same place failed me on wheel bearings it was rough discs, which sorted by grinding down the edges. They just spin the wheel and if sounds rough out it down as wheel bearing as something's not right. I need to try to shoe horn it into my lockup for a look.

[Doctormop]

Found a letter advising me that my car doesnt have a parking permit flapping under my wiper at lunchtime. So I wrote an email to the security bloke asking if they had any other option than sticking it to the glass, as they melt into it through experience. He replied saying I should just leave it on the cardboard backing, and leave it on the dash.

 

He obviously missed the point I made about things sliding or blowing off my dash due to its design. Decided to file his email under C for cunts and carry on not having a parking permit. 

 

The letter (standard things that gets wheeled out twice a year, its been photocopied so many times its fading itself) threatens clamping with a release fee. We are on private land, should I feel safe telling them to fuck off and do one?

 

Oh, and Pistonheads, fuck them. Replied to a thread about missing wheel bolts, regailing my story about the xm missing one for most of its life and having been fine and someone took offence to it. Although I await him being torn apart for being a prick, I'm not going to post on there anymore, jumped up pricks.

 

Could we have a shed of the week feature on here? But rather than it being a grand, make it £450 or something fun? (yes I know about the tat thread etc)

I have my permit attached by high tech elastic band around the passenger sun visor and just put the visor down when I park up, saves getting all kinds of sticky stuff all over the screen.

Private companies can not clamp vehicles as of last November, only the DVLA can immobilise your car on public or private land, you are 100% safe telling them to get stuffed and read up on the Protection of Freedom Acts 2012;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19782680

[Cavcraft]

I used a local place for an MOT about 18 months back and they were great. They must have been trying that 'be nice the first time, rob them blind the next' though as the next test they went to town big time. I'll never go back there again now, not if they were the last fucking garage in the county. They used to get a fairly regular trade off me fwiw and the a decent chunk of that was backhanders.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

With that sort of offer, why even offer money? Might as well just email and ask if you can have the item for free.