The link to MOT testing made me start looking at old cars
The Honda Accord I gave back in 2008 with 127k on it has now done 162k - 35k in 8 years so the poor thing is never getting warm and the advisories and fails indicate it is not a knowlegeable owner (Failed recently for a brake light out FFS - don't they check!)
The ocavia was given back with around 100k on it and four years later has a healthy 188k miles on it.
The Passat I gave back a year ago (almost 3 years old and 71k miles) and almost due an MOT has done a further 1000 miles in the last year.
Correction the passat was retested 6 months later and had done 300 miles so I gues it was returned to Leaseplan before the end of the lease and sold on.
Last edited by: IJWS14 on Thu 14 Apr 16 at 12:42
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>> Failed recently for a brake light out - don't they check!)
Going by the amount of cars I see on the road with failed bulbs, no they don't, or can't be bothered to change them. Granted some are difficult to change, and if all else fails pay someone like Halfords (cringe) to do it for you.
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">> Failed recently for a brake light out - don't they check!)
Going by the amount of cars I see on the road with failed bulbs, no they don't, or can't be bothered to change them. "
Whilst I agree with the observations regarding bulb-failure and the idleness of some drivers, the MoT failure may not tell the whole truth.
Last year, a headlight bulb failed on the Astra so, as it was due in for an MoT a couple of days later, I didn't drive the car at night, and asked the garage to fix it when it was in for its MoT/annual service. The garage, I should add, has an excellent reputation.
When I picked the car up, it been given an MoT failure notice, followed immediately by a re-test which it passed after the bulb had been fixed as requested; there was no extra cost to me. However, that MoT/bulb failure still remains on the system as witness (pah!) to my 'idleness'.
This was discussed a while ago on these threads and, apparently, garages frequently do this in order to give their 'failure' figures a boost.
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>> a headlight bulb failed on the Astra - I didn't drive the car at night,
But it's not only about being able to see where you're going at night, it's about other people being able to see you in poor weather conditions in daylight such as fog, rain, an overcast day, etc.
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"But it's not only about being able to see where you're going at night, it's about other people being able to see you in poor weather conditions in daylight such as fog, rain, an overcast day, etc."
OK - I don't recall driving it in the daytime either - it is the second car..
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On another website I found that you can input reg details and it tells you the make. The MOT site then gives you the details.
There is a car that had the registration G1 - I would imagine that plate is worth a pretty fortune?
It was on a VW Polo, 1999 model that when its MOTs stopped, had 140,000 miles on the clock!
Could have sold the plate and bought something newer I would guess??
G1 now must be on retention I am guessing as not noted anywhere else?
"Probably been in the family for years"
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>> This was discussed a while ago on these threads and, apparently, garages frequently do this
>> in order to give their 'failure' figures a boost.
>>
I've been told twice by garages that they're instructed by the DoT to test cars "as presented" so as it gives a true picture of the state of cars on the road.
However when I've said this on forums before MOT testers have popped up to say the garages are taking it too literally - it's "as presented for the test". There's nothing to stop the cars being worked on prior to the test.
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Do you honestly care? I for one don't. VOSA do expect a number of cars to fail, and since they use the numbers to 'select' a garage for inspection, no garage is going to invite one by having figures that suggest they pass too many cars and are an easy touch.
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"Do you honestly care?"
Only inasmuch as I'd hate to give someone like the OP the wrong impression. [(Failed recently for a brake light out FFS - don't they check!)]
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A good friend of mine, an independent mechanic, looks after our cars when they are old enough not to worry about a full dealer service history. He does a better job IMO and at much lower cost.
I asked him to go over the MX5 last year, do what needed doing and get it tested for me. He was quite clear that he would get the test first, rather than second guess the tester, then do what he himself considered necessary plus anything the test threw up.
This can be an advantage on old cars where the tester might just come up with something that's too expensive to fix economically. It also means that the mechanic knows whether he needs to bother doing something that he or the customer might not consider necessary but which the tester might not like - rusty discs for example.
The retest is free at the place he uses, so there's little disadvantage to this although it can mean taking it back for the retest. I suspect he would check the bulbs before testing though, as that is an obvious fail and would lead to a pointless retest.
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Taken aback once when our Civic was failed due to temporary wheel/tyre being used as we had a puncture the day before. New tyre fitted (sourced elsewhere) and pass bestowed. Hadn't thought the temp tyre was a fail. Darn.
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>> Hadn't thought the temp tyre was a fail. Darn.
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Hmmm...I thought that was well known. You can't take a driving test with one on, either.
I think it's something of a grey area legally, but you're only supposed to use them to get the car to a place of repair. There was a thread on PistonHeads where a guy got a ticket after admitting he'd been using the space-saver for a few days.
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Failed recently for a brake light out FFS - don't they check!
One car I owned blew a bulb on the way to the test! Tested perfectly at home, and by the time I got to the test station it no longer worked.
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>> Do you honestly care?
I think it looks good to have a clean sheet. Looked back at some of our long-gone cars and failures due to bulbs and tyres are regular occurences, which seems stupid to me.
I also don't like the randomness of advisories - the repaired chip in my windscreen get mentioned ever other years, and one year the front tyres were noted as scrubbed on the outside edges. Same tyres next year, with 7000 miles more wear, same tester, no mention.
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Honda Accord Tourer - The poor thing. - VxFan
