MOT time is approaching for the old Focus, which will also be its 10th birthday (I might bake it a cake..)
At this age, it's easy for a picky tester to find faults, not to mention the usual risk of the MOT being a business generating opportunity.
I'm thinking of trying a council test centre, on the basis that they are not in the repair business. On the other hand, it will be a full test fee and their testers might be on the "thorough" side. If it fails, there will be at least a partial retest fee, too.
Unfortunately, I don't have a mate in a garage that I can trust with it. So what do other folks do?
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I'm lucky enough to have the mate in a garage route for both servicing and MOTs. However, if you let us know roughly where you are, someone might be able to recommend a reputable place locally. :-)
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Thanks DP, I'm on the Notts/South Lincs border.
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I ask my indy mechanic to sort any minor faults and put the car through the MoT. He's completely trustworthy and the MoT place is next door to his own garage, so it's handy. I don't live in London any more but welcome any excuse to go there.
When I had Skodas I used to straighten them out myself and take them to another MoT place that I used for years. They were thorough but reasonable, not above twiddling a carb screw to get the emissions legal without charging anything.
It must be a nightmare though for people who aren't too clever about cars and fall into the hands of the jobsworths and crooks who abound these days.
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The six MOTs on my present car have been carried out by a franchised dealer. So far, touch wood, no failures or advisories.
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Ive found main dealers and my local indy to be equally fair and just. My indy always kept any bits neededd replacing so he could show the failure and ive never had a car fail an MOT at main dealers, but then I do keep my cars in good shape as far as I can, so any fails will be minor.
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On the two occasions I've booked a service and MOT with a franchised dealer, both on 3-year old fully serviced cars with no apparent problems, it's resulted in a fail and a call offering to have everything done so the car is ready to collect at tea time. I always check that there are no obvious faults with lights, tyres, leaking shocks etc etc before booking in, and the problems have always been with less visible components. Always impossible to know if there was a genuine fault, or not. Given my cynical nature, I now avoid MOTs with franchised dealers!
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My BM only gets done at the main dealers, on account of them being money grabbing monkeys i can be fairly sure they'll do a thorough MOT.
It's a wee bit of peace of mind when you DIY your own maintainance, having something with a clue check over at least the basics of it.
* Although they did wrongly diagnose a leaking PS pipe as a leaking autobox oil cooler pipe... but it needed fixing anyway so fail was the right outcome.
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A little bit of a trek for you DF but I go here:
www.caetano.co.uk/MOT.php
They don't do repairs so their MoT testing is impartial, it's a good clean modern facility and only 35 quid for cars.
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This is going to the Vauxhall dealer one month before it's 3yrs old, im sure it will pass with flying colours.
Next year it's off to local gargage which is full price but only a 5 mins walk.
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Where do you get your MOT done? - DP
