My magazine from the Manchester Historic Vehicle Club arrived yesterday.
Very interesting piece about MOT tests for older vehicles. The Federation of Historic Vehicle Clubs has been working with officialdom on consultation about removing the need for testing of older vehicles. A cut-off date of 1960 is likely.
This is partly due to the fact that older vehicles do a lot fewer miles, in most cases, than moderns and tend to be well maintained by their owners. Something else mentioned, which hadn't occurred to me, is that a growing number of younger testers simply do not know about old cars.
The writer says..." An increasing number of stations are introducing cut-off dates. My local test garage will not test anything older that 1997. Some owners are finding it difficult to get a test done.. . MOT equipment cannot analyse oil, acetylene or certain older forms of electric lighting. Modern brake rollers can damage transmission systems and most garages do not have a Tapley for on the road testing.
Many younger testers are not aware of the diverse construction and tolerances of early manufacturers and , in some cases, cannot actually drive the car due to lack of knowledge with regard to hand signals, double de-clutching, centre accelerator and manual mixtere and ignition setting. "
In my case, our new tester, mid twenties, had very little idea what to test on my 1952 car.
He jokingly exclaimed he'd ' got me ' on the white front flashers....not so. In fact, I think he was a bit nervous about moving the car. The test was complete with the car on the ramp, a visual inspection and no roller test.
Interesting about the proposed cut -off year, Most surviving cars of the fifties and earlier have been well sorted by now. I imagine many later cars are more prone to rust due to sloppy manufacturing of the grey porage stuff of later years.
We shall see !
Ted
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Although it's some time ago now, we used to get a lot of older cars coming to my father's garage for MOT, simply because he had been in the trade for long enough to understand the older cars. These older cars were tested with pragmatism, and dare I say it?, common sense.
The MOT is, bit by bit becoming more of a tick box exercise, and we are sleepwalking towards a Shaken like test which will be expensive enough and stringent enough to put people off getting it done. A major contribution to road safety....NOT.
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1997 seems a bizarre cut-off date, I wouldn't think there's anything tricky to test on a Sierra or Cavalier Mk.2.
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I can think of some 1995 cars which have an engine still produced to today, the 1.25 Yamaha unit found in the Fiesta being an example.
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I think the article author is making too much of imaginary difficulties.
They don't need to test acetylene lamps any more than seeing that they work - the owner can light them for the tester.
My tester didn't know how to start an old LandRover windscreen wiper, so I showed him.
He wondered why there was no 3rd brake light - I told him they didn't have them.
He knew that 4WD vehicles have transmission handbrakes so can't be tested on rollers, so used a tapley (I think) at about 2 mph.
He didn't drive it on the road, so didn't need to double declutch.
The emission test equipment wasn't needed, because the requirement for old vehicles is only to pass a visual smoke test, which is pretty lenient. As long as the smoke screen clears after a bit of revving, it's a pass.
I can see good reasons for abandoning any irksome test of any minority interest, simply on the grounds that there are so few it doesn't really matter whether a few are unsafe or not.
There are simply more important matters to spend resources on.
More cost-effective in reducing road accidents might be to abandon all MOT tests on vehicles and replace them with annual health and attitude tests on drivers?
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Sat 24 Dec 11 at 18:03
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>> More cost-effective in reducing road accidents might be to abandon all MOT tests on vehicles
>> and replace them with annual health and attitude tests on drivers?
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Yep.
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Acetylene lamps are 'decorative' is the line from those who know.
As far as I know, they haven't a hope of passing even the most lenient of interpretations.
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>> Acetylene lamps are 'decorative' is the line from those who know.
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My father had one on his bicycle, and regularly cycled long distances at night during the war.
I tried it once, in the days when Halfords still sold carbide, and was amazed at how well it worked. With a freshly-polished reflector it gave a beam easily as good as a modern bike lamp.
Just a bit fiddly to set up, and even worse to clean out after use.
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My local guy uses a Tapley meter on the GMC, as due to the body width it is too close to the ramp pillars to do a rolling toad test without risking damage; as you'll know there's a tendency for the rear to move to one side under test. I would suspect that any garage which tests light commercials will have one.
As I've mentioned on here before, he also welcomes older stuff on the grounds that it tests his skills in a different way, and also alleviates the monotony of much of the "plug'n'play" modern stuff.
Carbide lamps are indeed quite bright when well set up; I remember once offering to shadow the rider of a 1916 Harley which was so equipped up a difficult minor road, only to discover that his headlight was far better than mine and I consequently ended up a distant second at the finish!
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IIRC, a tapley meter is prescribed equipment which should be present and calibrated when an MOT station is running.
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A carbide lamp can do main beam quite well, but the issue is dipped beam and dazzle.
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An MOT test station banned me from presenting my bubble-car back in the '60s!
They had four pads set in the floor. Braking performance was measured by driving onto the pads and braking. Four tubes on the wall showed a fluid level that was commensurate with braking efficiency.
My bubble-car had a narrow track and it took them several attempts before they managed to get both front wheels on the pads. IIRC it showed near zero efficiency due to its low weight. They then reversed it out and drove it forward, applying the handbrake. It sailed towards the pit and stopped with a front wheel either side. A shaken tester got out and said it was a fail, until his assistant pointed out the skid mark caused by the locked rear wheel in the muck on the garage floor.
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The MOT test. - Number_Cruncher
