Things you can’t believe an MOT tester missed…

[GregZX]

That you knew in advance and thought there was absolutely no chance of them missing. 
 

I’ll start with the recent MOT on my Citroen ZX  

Ridiculously cracked and perished OSR tyre. 

Tyres of different sizes on the front axle. 

Front OS brake binding 

mega play in lower engine mount

 

[sierraman]

And for that £45 they didn’t even change the oil!!!

[Dyslexic Viking]

A non functioning handbrake.

And I bought a car that had just passed that had broken springs, worn out brakes and a rust hole in the floor so big that I was afraid a dog would fall through.

[RoverFolkUs]

34 minutes ago, GregZX said:

Ridiculously cracked and perished OSR tyre. 

Any cords? If not - pass and advise

35 minutes ago, GregZX said:

Tyres of different sizes on the front axle. 

Fair enough

35 minutes ago, GregZX said:

Front OS brake binding 

Is it locked up? If it's only slightly stiff by hand it'll behave fine on the rollers

36 minutes ago, GregZX said:

mega play in lower engine mount

Not a testable item

 

Louder for the people at the back; the MOT is confirmation that a car meets a list of minimum standards on the day it was presented. It is not a certificate of roadworthiness or a clean bill of health for the year ahead

Testers are told when they take the course- "any doubts, you must give benefit of the doubt and pass and advise" 

A tyre on 1.5mm will fail, a tyre on 1.6mm will pass. Is there any safety difference? No - they're just as unsafe as each other. But that's the rule and set standard. 

[camryv6]

We could have a thread on things you managed to get past an MOT tester !!

[GregZX]

22 minutes ago, sierraman said:

And for that £45 they didn’t even change the oil!!!

Hahaha. So true. Conversely I’ve spoken to non car folk who are astonished when their car fails and MOT and they exclaim “but it had a service 3 months ago!!!”  

[GregZX]

23 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Any cords? If not - pass and advise

Fair enough

Is it locked up? If it's only slightly stiff by hand it'll behave fine on the rollers

Not a testable item

 

Louder for the people at the back; the MOT is confirmation that a car meets a list of minimum standards on the day it was presented. It is not a certificate of roadworthiness or a clean bill of health for the year ahead

Testers are told when they take the course- "any doubts, you must give benefit of the doubt and pass and advise" 

A tyre on 1.5mm will fail, a tyre on 1.6mm will pass. Is there any safety difference? No - they're just as unsafe as each other. But that's the rule and set standard. 

I’ve had a failure for a cracked tyre wall. It was 2007 though. 

[RoverFolkUs]

13 minutes ago, GregZX said:

I’ve had a failure for a cracked tyre wall. It was 2007 though. 

It must have been down to the cords, it's a perfectly legitimate fail if cords can be seen, or felt with a blunt object. But heavy perishing without cords is not cause for concern in terms of an MOT. 

I completely agree that it's best to replace an ancient tyre that's heavily perished, however the MOT minimum standards are so poor (in my opinion) that "legally" it's not a problem

[Zelandeth]

Have to admit I was surprised this didn't even get an advisory.  Knew they'd not be failable, but absolutely expected an advisory for them.

They're all getting changed in the next few weeks anyway.  With 2.8t of motorhome teetering on top of them I'm not taking chances!  Especially with how violent a few of the unavoidable pot holes around here are.

They went from "a bit of perishing visible" to "well that's fscked" really quickly.  Cheapo tyres I guess, plus they are well past their best before date anyway so can't complain.  Not as though 185 R14C tyres are massively expensive at least.

Instead I *did* get a somewhat mysterious advisory for a weeping power steering pipe. 

Which is interesting as the van doesn't have nor has ever had power steering.

[groovyboovy]

Got a pass on a C3 with ABS light on dash.

Also on my land rover, no dates on tyres as they are military, stamped MIL i think?

What must have got through MOT before the garage sold it to us a hole in the exhaust

[AnnoyingPentium]

We got the '10 Auris through with an EML. Somehow.

[twosmoke300]

What we can learn from this is that testers can’t fucking win .

[MJK 24]

One of the back doors on my daily hasn’t opened (from the outside) since 2019!  I just make sure all the rear seatbelts are fastened when I take it for test!

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, twosmoke300 said:

What we can learn from this is that testers can’t fucking win .

That is very true!  It's not a job I'd want to do.

My approach with my cars has always been that if there's something that needs doing that I've missed I'd far rather know about it than not.  It's a minefield taking an old car into a garage that doesn't regularly deal with classics though. 

I had a bit of a battle back when I first moved down here and put my Saab in for an MOT.  They initially failed it for an inoperative steering lock.  Three things: 1. Why the heck is that a testable item anyway?  2. The car had never had one from new as Saab fitted the security device to the gearshift instead of the steering, and 3. I'm pretty certain it was one of those items that has the "on vehicles first used after date..." involved.

I think the MOT is a bloody brilliant idea, and for what it is is really cheap.  Hiring a lift and going over the underside to check the condition of all the brake lines, suspension components etc I can't see properly with the car on the ground/on axle stands would cost me a heck of a lot more than an MOT does.

[twosmoke300]

That’s sounds like an inexperienced tester to me !

To be fair you can’t be expected to have intimate knowledge of every car on the road . But you should be able to test to the standards in the book . In reality that takes a long time and testers are under pressure to bang tests out every hour or 45 mins all day every day . 
Consulting the testers manual could easily take 10/15 mins 

[twosmoke300]

See also front handbrakes on older Citroens and transmission handbrake on landys and Isuzus etc 

[RoverFolkUs]

This thread makes me not want to bother getting an MOT license to an even greater extent!!

I'm not a tester but still know 90% of the book inside out. It's the actual testing I'm not keen on!

[Matty]

10 hours ago, twosmoke300 said:

What we can learn from this is that testers can’t fucking win .

The only car I own that's mot exempt is still getting presented for a test every year. At the end of the day I'm a heavy plant fitter not a car mechanic. It's worth circa 40 quid a year to me to have a qualified professional give it the once over and make sure its safe. Going to 2 year MOTs is patently bollocks, as is the assumption that all owners of classic cars know what they're on with.

[cobblers]

I just want an MOT tester that completely ignores some dangerous things that I'm not worried about, and at least tells me about the dangerous things I should be worried about. And is a busty slightly naive 27 year old lass who can keep a secret and cooks a good breakfast. 

 

[meggersdog]

13 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

This thread makes me not want to bother getting an MOT license to an even greater extent!!

I'm not a tester but still know 90% of the book inside out. It's the actual testing I'm not keen on!

When the DVSA inspector turns up, especially when there are two of them, to re-inspect a car I've just tested is awful. I get them once a year usually, a site inspection but "while we're here let's have a look at this car you've MoTed" One car had been tested  (and failed) two hours earlier  when they inspected it praised me for finding a broken spring underneath the plastic cover of the pigtail  but then gave me points for a blown side repeater. It worked at the time of the test and was the side where the ramp controls are so I wouldn't have missed it.

[RoverFolkUs]

1 minute ago, meggersdog said:

When the DVSA inspector turns, especially when there are two of them, to re-inspect a car I've just tested is awful. I get them once a year usually, a site inspection but "while we're here let's have a look at this car you've MoTed" One car had been tested two hours earlier but when they inspected it praised me for finding a broken spring underneath the plastic cover of the pigtail then gave me points for a blown side repeater. It worked at the time of the test and was the side where the ramp controls are so I wouldn't have missed it.

That's really bad. They harp on about everything checked is only as good as the hour of the test. What if it was road tested afterwards for another issue and another spring broke!? You can't have possibly predicted it, but they will always act with hindsight..! If something's working, you can't fail it just in case, you'd get in trouble for that too! As above - can't win!

[jon.k]

14 hours ago, sierraman said:

And for that £45 they didn’t even change the oil!!!

Or fully valet the inside!

[Bren]

What about a new thread -"things you are glad they missed".....

[sierraman]

Nobodies perfect, mistakes get made, 45 mins isn’t long to fully inspect a car especially if it’s obvious there’s something hidden on it like brake lines pasted in grease.

[Nibbler]

Quite a big portion of the floor missing on a Capri Mk 2.  He did not say a word about it..

[barrett]

3 hours ago, cobblers said:

I just want an MOT tester that completely ignores some dangerous things that I'm not worried about, and at least tells me about the dangerous things I should be worried about. And is a busty slightly naive 27 year old lass who can keep a secret and cooks a good breakfast. 

 

Apart from the last bit, my old tester was like this. "You know the headlamps don't work, right?" yeah I'll get those sorted "Okay, you know there's a huge fuel leak from the tank though yeah?" Oh yeah, that's getting fixed next week. "Congrats on yr pass M8"

[leafsprung]

Is there a reasoning for tyre condition being such a low bar in the MOT rules and regs? Surely we aren't overly paranoid about old cracked  tyre safety?

I recently sold on an aged relative's Renault Commodus still wearing its 11 year old factory fitted tyres which were cracked to feck and hard as stone. It was the classic old persons shopping car. One weekly trip to the Lidls a mile down the road, the rest of the week it was sat outside rain or shine. The aged relative wouldn't pay for a new set as 'it's just passed its test'.

The advert made clear their condition and I tried to encourage the purchaser to budget for some new ones but similarly as it had a ticket and 'loads of tread left' they were satisfied. In went the kids and the dog and off they went, cheerfully reporting later that it 'drove well at 70', (notable because it had never been above 40 in its entire life).   My tyre OCD meter blew a fuse. 

 

[sierraman]

I think it’s same assumption that all Classic Car owners know their way around the car, there’s a few I’ve seen where they really shouldn’t be ‘on the tools’. 

[straightSix]

I've had a few things like doors not opening that have been missed but the worst one was a spring that had snapped and was resting against the anti-roll bar.. bit scary really. I'd much rather a more thorough test as like others have said, it's impossible to get a proper look at everything underneath just on your drive on axel stands 

[camryv6]

18 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

This thread makes me not want to bother getting an MOT license to an even greater extent!!

I'm not a tester but still know 90% of the book inside out. It's the actual testing I'm not keen on!

Go with your instincts 😉

But honestly it is not too bad, just don't miss anything when testing or fuck up !!