rant MOT system and poor service

Had a recent experience that gave me flashbacks to this thread...farce springs to mind. http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?352666-MOT-advice-please/page2&highlight=farce+mot

It's a long story and apologise in advance for the length of the post.

So my normal MOT man who we trust and have used for years has been out of action for a while now and I took my daily to a local place, somewhere I have used a few times in the past year for various motors , they have all failed but nothing major, emissions, ball joints, tyres etc. This time the X5 failed miserably, both thrust arm bushes, ball joint, tyres, emissions, HID bulbs in non HID housings, sun strip in wiper sweep area and a few minors such as pads thin. When they called me to tell me this they were very keen to give me a price for the repairs.

Said not to worry and I would collect and bring it back for a re-test sometime. Since then did everything on the list, brand new tyres all round, replaced most of the suspension consumables, over and above what it had failed on apart from the bottom ball joints as they are a bit of a nightmare. To do these without a ramp is difficult as you need to get a long heavy slide hammer in to get enough pull to get them out of the hub and I don’t have that luxury on working axle stands.

So FF a week or so, calls garage and explains all done except the ball joints (bare in mind only one failed) and I would like to book it in to do replace these and get a re-test. Long pause, hand over phone muffled chatting in background…….they can’t fit it in for a week so I will have to pay for a retest £35 as it will now be outside the 10 days. Accepts this and it’s booked in. Drops it off in the morning of the booking and said to Mr Happy about the ball joints and he now saying that he wouldn’t have time to do both but would do one to get it through the test. I agree, was a bit miffed but needed the MOT as had been using the Supra for the station each day and I hate parking it there.

Later in the day get a call from them, "we have a problem with your car, we were just doing the retest and there's something seriously up with your engine"..wtf. They reckon during the emissions test it got to 2500rpm smoked heavy and then started to run on 2 cylinders. I was absolutely gobsmacked and pretty speechless tbh. I ask if the car is still drivable and they say not really but as you are so close it may get you home. I asks what about the bottom ball joint then how much do I owe you for that? "We haven’t done it yet, but it's going to cost £150 + VAT" So hang on, one of the failures is the ball joint (it is well past it's best as there was a deffinite clunk with the play in the joint) but you were re testing it without that done? Bloke then gets flustered and hands over to another bloke who says they were just checking all the items on the last fail. To me that sounds like although they wanted another £35 from me for a new full test, they had no intention of doing that and was just going to go over the last failure list. Told them to leave the car outside and the missus would pick the key up and I would get it moved and then come back to them. I also said I don’t expect to pay anything at this time.

Gets home and to the car, turns key and lo and behold engine starts, running on all 6 ticking over as it should and always has. Increases revs to 2k..2.5..3.5..4 all good so decides at that point to get it home while it was running, thinking that there was a serious engine problem looming. Got it the half mile or so home and left it running, got it up to temp and revved it again, all good. Takes it for a drive (yeah yeah no MOT I know) all good. Absolutely bemused by this I left it parked up until last Saturday and pulled the hub off and knocked the ball joint out myself, took about an hour in total, if it had been on a ramp using the slide hammer method as BMW suggest it would have been half an hour max, with a large socket and a club hammer it took just 4 whacks and was out so wasn’t seized in too badly.

Yesterday morning I took it to another MOT place and explained the situation, showed them the failure paperwork and the large pile of bits in the footwell and left it with them. Two hours later I had a call to say it had passed, absolutely no problems with anything, no advises, no dramas with the emission test either, but the most annoying thing was that in their opinion both old thrust arm bushes were fine and the sun strip which was still screwed up in the car had enough transparency not to be a fail, what a joke!

I can only assume and this is what I dislike about the MOT system is that the first place generate all their work from MOT failures and it’s in their interest to fail and quote for the work. I guess they were looking forward to a nice big hefty bill/profit for a set of tyres, replacement bulbs, brake pads and ball joint, but when it came down to only having the most difficult part of the job they weren’t interested and preferred to move onto easier more profitable jobs. They hid behind this bull#.# story about engine failure, did they really think I wouldn’t notice the engine was fine? Very very weird and transparent in their conning ways. Interestingly the place I took it to this time don’t do mechanical repairs, simply bodywork and MOTs. What a bunch of tossers and what a ridiculous system MOT testing has become.

To add further insult to injury, when I got home last night they had done a leaflet drop and were offering MOT tests for £29!

For me at least the morale of this story is never to take your car to a MOT test station that also does repair work unless you know and trust them. Instead take it to somewhere who has no interest in flogging you a set of tyres, exhaust or letting a child change your brake pads. Most local council yards have MOT facilities and if yours does would suggest you use these.

My village garage does all my MOTS, they do service and repair work and never had a problem.

The only time i had a problem was when the MOT on my Landcruiser had run out and i couldn't

get in at my local, i used another place not far away that to my shock failed it and classed it as dangerous.

Very strangely they failed it on parts that had been replaced not very long ago and on the steering rack

being loose, all work done by my local village garage, i drove it straight there very carefully/slowly and told

Simon the owner what had gone on and he was very concerned, as soon as the ramp was free he popped it

on to check and absolutely nothing wrong, he called the other garage to ask whats going on and basically they

had been caught trying to rip me off.

Some places have no shame. No shame. Its how they make money to justify the business. We once had a place test my dads celica thinking we were stupid. Failed on a possibly sticking calliper and that they needed to strip the calliper to 'Inspect' it and that they would have to carry out a wheel alignment. Called my mate up to see if he could fit it in...straight MOT guys, if its going to fail they wont pass it. Took it down there, Celica passed. Rang up the other place...gave them a good old gob full of a bolocking and told them ill be doing a full report against them..never did...but you may want to consider that. Totally shameless theifs.

Similar experiences for me too. My daily failed one year on a variety of things and I was quoted nearly £1000 to get the car fixed the same day with a fresh MOT. I took it home and did all the work bar one job myself for £200. And that included a variety of brand new tools for the garage to help me along with the job.

One thing left to do was glue a tab on my headlight that had snapped and left it "unsecure" deeming it an MOT fail. It was part of the headlight adjustment mechanism so I was hesitant to do it myself in case I fixed it in place and it was sitting out of spec. They offered to do the job in their £1000 quote but denied even suggesting it when I brought it back for it's re-test. I just went for it myself and was lucky it sat within spec. Got my pass on the second try and haven't been back.

The cheaper the MOT they offer, the more likely they are to try and have some money out of you I reckon. They probably make a fortune off of unaware customers as well.

Sounds a bit like my experience with Halfords Redditch and their MOT and "Free Winter Check" mate. My note to their Manager below....

Good afternoon

I totally forgot to write a review and complain at the time but the expiry of the MOT shortly has reminded me to do so.^

Halfords Redditch passed my wife's MOT last year on her BMW X1 without issue and the only advisory was for a small chip in windscreen. We decided to book in 2 weeks later for the Free Winter Check only for another technician to note that both front suspension arms were shot to hell and they would of immediately failed the MOT.^

They had significantly deteriorated so this wasn't a case of something occurring in the intermittent period. It was quite amusing and frightening when he asked where and when I had the MOT done recently and my response was "by you bloody incompetent muppets". His face was one of understanding and familiarity.^

We have a young child (now two) and my wife was pregnant at the time this happened. It's damn right dangerous and grossly unacceptable. You should be shut down.^

Regards

Greg

Thanks for the comments. I think we all know most places are just looking for work and in Gregg's case it just goes to show also how easily things can be missed.

Interestingly since this happened I was chatting to a neighbour the other day and was telling him the story and he had taken his Berlingo van to the same place as me and that too failed on ball joints, he paid them to replace them. A year and less than 500 miles later he took it for another test, it failed again on the same ball joints. Says it all really.

The place i mentioned were making work up as the dangerous fails were parts that had

only recently been replaced and the rack falling off was a blatent lie.

My question to you is...do you service the car regularly? Much of that stuff reported as failures should either be pointed out to you in a service so it shouldn't come as a surprise at MOT time. You might have taken it to another place after for a second opinion. Some of these places are stupidly anal, I remember a failure due to having no rear passenger seatbelts.. they were just behind where the seats folded back!

I guess why they're doing both ball joints is if one fails, the other will be likely to soon after, might as well get it done right.

Sounds like they were looking to get some money out of you for sure. I don't think garages make anything out of the MOT itself, £35 doesn't cover much for them, so it's probably in their interest to find other things to work on right?

My question to you is...do you service the car regularly? Much of that stuff reported as failures should either be pointed out to you in a service so it shouldn't come as a surprise at MOT time. You might have taken it to another place after for a second opinion. Some of these places are stupidly anal, I remember a failure due to having no rear passenger seatbelts.. they were just behind where the seats folded back!

 

I guess why they're doing both ball joints is if one fails, the other will be likely to soon after, might as well get it done right.

 

Sounds like they were looking to get some money out of you for sure. I don't think garages make anything out of the MOT itself, £35 doesn't cover much for them, so it's probably in their interest to find other things to work on right?

That’s why I would suggest MOT test station that don't do repairs have to be a better bet. Also, just to clarify, they didn’t want to do both joints, I wanted them to do both for the very reason you say, they didn't and wanted to do only the one that failed.

This particular car hasn't had much "servicing" on it since my ownership over the past 10 months, I have rebuilt the turbo, replaced the PCV, had the injectors out and the inlet runners off so the topend cam case gasket could be replaced and done the servcing associated with those works but I don’t see that the transparency of the sun-strip would be pointed out on any service work and as for the thrust arm bushes they are fine. As for HID bulbs not in self levelling lenses, we all know as Supra owners this is a big possibility for a fail, seems to depend on the tester but by the book yes its a fail and that can't be questioned, hardly a servicing issue though. Tyres were a fair cop as I knew there was damage to the side walls but interestingly the tyre place I took them to for replacement said two of the three were not deep enough to be a failure in their opinion, but its a heavy bus so I am happy for them to be replaced anyhow. Only other thing I think may have been flagged during service work may have been the pads, but how low do they need to be for a fail do you know? These still had enough on them to show the centre groove, but as I had it to bits to do the suspension components I changed them anyhow as I don’t like the idea of having advisories showing on an MOT certificate.

Yes I don’t suppose 45 minutes of a testers time in a equipped testing garage with all it's overheads is going to make a profit, but I guess by wanting to have a second bite of the cherry and charging me for a second "full" test (which I agreed to) whilst then openly admitting to me that they were only checking the previously failed items would compensate.

Yes I don’t suppose 45 minutes of a testers time in a equipped testing garage with all it's overheads is going to make a profit, but I guess by wanting to have a second bite of the cherry and charging me for a second "full" test (which I agreed to) whilst then openly admitting to me that they were only checking the previously failed items would compensate.

Yup, sounds from your original post they were certainly looking for things to try and get more money out of you. Not good.

Pad wise.. nope.. I'd presume the thickness at the side is the indicator, but I would expect an advisory and not a fail if there is still plenty left.