Marko that is the point i was trying to make in my first post.

TheLittlestHobo:

Yes I was just trying to stand up for the poor MOT tester. I think there are only 3 people in the entire world who defend the poor maligned motor trade!
(runs and hides)

Marko

i could argue that by saying the brake pads may need changing within 12mths they are pressurising the customer more than by saying 70%.

You could. You’d be wrong, but you could do that.

I think perhaps you misunderstand me, either that or I just wasn’t clear. By saying “they’ll probably need changing in 12 months,” I didn’t mean that the customer should blindly change them in a few months, rather that the customer should get them rechecked in a few months. If you genuinely believe that “your brake pads are 70% worn, we can change them now” is better advice than “your brake pads are 70% worn, you’ll be fine for now but you should really bring it back in a couple of months so we can test it again” when there’s a third of their life left in the pads then we’ll have to just agree to differ I think.

Your example is a definate time frame whereas the customer can calculate that if the car has done 4yrs and 43,000mls on them he is going to easily get MORE than the 12mths out of them.

I still think you’re giving the ‘average customer’ too much credit. You’re probably right for a percentage of drivers, but I reckon that’s a small percentage. The sales pitch isn’t aimed at them.

Anyway, by the by. Without being there it’s difficult to say for sure whether it was bad advice to make a quick sale or whether it was a helpful advisory. I’m not saying they did anything wrong per sé, just that on the face of it it could be misleading.

Took my car in for a service approx 15 months ago and had new disks and pads fitted. Booked the car for a service and MOT at the same main dealership a couple of weeks ago. As it’s over an hour away I left home to arrive at the garage to find the service manager saying “we’ve been trying to contact you all afternoon”

(I checked the mobile later and their first call was at 4.17 when I was already in the car on my way over)

The conversation went something like:

D “Your brakes have failed on the MOT?”
Me “That’s a suprise!”
D “They’re binding on at the front, and the pads need replacing”
Me “Really, those new disks and pads you fitted the last time you had the car about 14000 miles ago are now shot?”
D “We haven’t been able to contact you to authorise any more work so we’ve left them as they were…brakes are a consumeable”
Me “Well I’ve been on the phone a couple of times, but the MOT is up tomorrow ?”
D “Well I suppose you can keep the loan car till Monday, and we’ll get you a price (mechanic was a also stood there). Mech “…It will pobably need new calipers, but I can’t confirm that ‘tll we’ve had a proper inspection…maybe up to £800 or £900 for the job”.
Me “forget it”.

Basically they just couldn’t be bothered with my predicament. It was approaching 5.30 and they wanted to get home. They’d left the job so late in the day they had nowhere to go but break some bad news.
I took it to a local garage the following day – a new set of pads later and a new MOT in hand. He said there was no evidence of any coppaslip on the back of the pads from when they’d been fitted, and they’d just bound in the caliper and worn away. The most irritating thing is that if they’d done the MOT first as ANY garage normally would they’d have spotted the problem and had time to work on it.

The garage in question was Lexus Stoke and the “service” (feel the irony) cost me approaching £500. I’d previously had good service from them but they will never see me again.

Oh, and I’m still waiting for my call from the dealer principal. I imagine he’s been trying to contact me all day as well. 👿

Did mean, didnt mean, should coulda woulda. Blah blah blah. The point remains it is just a different interpretation.

The fact remains, as Marko pointed out, VOSA actually insist they let you know. How they do it is open

Let’s face it, the roadworthiness of a car 6 months post MOT can’t be justified by the MOT, which only really applies on the day of issue. Even 24 hours later a fault could have occured which would be a fail.

Hobo, whats wrong about the receptionist/mechanic story? The mechanic falsified an MOT, he lost job. Sounds about right. The receptionist can ask all she likes.

Took my Mondeo into a main stealer for a service, purely to get the corrosion warranty box ticked so I could then take it into a Ford bodyshop and get all the rusty sills repaired. I’d haggled them down a little to match a Ford fast fit centre, I got the expected call mid-afternoon – “your brake pads need replacing, 75% worn, that’ll be £350 please”. I bought the pads from a motorfactors, replaced the rears which were about half the thickness of the new ones, but the fronts were 75% unworn! Sold the car a year later (with nice repaired sills) and the pads a few months after that on ebay.

I’ve heard some stories of what goes on in dealers, had a friend who did a stint as a salesman at Fords, constant stories of charging customers XXX for a dog guard then popping down halfords and getting a cheapo universal one, same with roof bars, and how his colleagues would up sell all the optional extras to squeeze every penny out of OAPs, how cars would come in with intermittent faults or service and the bare minimum gets done to them.

I also bought a car that came with a new MOT, took it back the following day with no damping action whatsoever in the rear shocks, airbag lights on (and a leaking gearbox gasket and slipping brand new clutch but thats not the MOT guys fault) Looked up the history on the MOT site, last three MOTs had an advisory list as long as your arm;

Windscreen has damage to an area less than a 10mm circle within zone ‘A’ (8.3.1a)
Brake hydraulic reservoir fluid close to minimum level (3.6.G.2b)
Front Brake disc(s) (3.5.1h)
Front Brake disc(s) slightly pitted (3.5.1h)
Front Brake pad(s) wearing thin (3.5.1f)
Air bag light on
All four shockers getting soft
And,
Nearside Front Brake pad(s) wearing thin (3.5.1f)
Offside Front Brake pad(s) wearing thin (3.5.1f)
Nearside Rear Shock absorber has a slightly reduced damping effect (2.7.5)
Offside Rear Shock absorber has a slightly reduced damping effect (2.7.5)
Offside at limit Windscreen has damage to an area less than a 10mm circle within zone ‘A’ (8.3.1a)
Brake hydraulic reservoir fluid close to minimum level (3.6.G.2b)
Airbag light staying on
Wiper blades showing age and have smear recommend replacing
N/s mirror damaged advise repair
Clutch release bearing noisy (and still noisy after replacement clutch)
Exhaust has part of the system slightly deteriorated (7.1.1a)

But somehow the latest MOT came with no advisories, despite still showing all the faults above, and coming with two visibly under-inflated tyres that were also underinflated on the test drive before it went for its MOT.

My van also came back from an MOT with a pass, despite me taking it in an asking them to replace dud bulbs for the rear number plate, x1 tail lamp, and x1 front marker lamp.

My Mondeo came back from a check on the suspension with a clean bill of health, no faults found, turned out the rear castor was seriously out causing uneven tyre wear and dodgy handling, sorted at another garage when I did some Googling on the symptoms and told them exactly what needed doing.

The only place I trust is the local ‘Just MOTs’ place, they failed my car once as it had a multi-colour headlight bulb in one side and a white in the other, how they noticed I don’t know! Apparently both are OK, but must be the same fitted to both lights.

Spooky, is the irony of this guy who was sacked for dishonesty and then employed by the police not glaring

Yeh I saw that Hobo, but I got the impression you also thought it unfair that the receptionist kept her job whilst mechanic was sacked. My mistake.

Always thought the trick is to go somewhere that doesn’t do repairs/parts, takes away the motivation to “find” something to fail. I work on the basis of trusting nobody, really, and it does seem to work.

The general perception is that a lot of garages have an integrity on par with that of estate agents & double glazing salesmen.

There’s a lot of people around with tales of being hoodwinked, or simply ripped off.
Maybe they are all misunderstood or maybe they do have a particularly high number on chancers in their ranks
Certainly in the past there was massive amounts of fiddling going on in the motor industry, hence all the tight regulations to keep records of mileage etc.

The only thing I will post is:

Never go to Arnold Shark. Ever.

I once ripped them off 😆

i once put my ford orion in for mot, at a small independent garage,
it passed.
less than 100 miles later i noticed a grinding noise from the front when i used the brakes, got my dad to check it and it turns out the front pads were completely worn out!
(i had only passed my test a few months, and knew nothing about cars)
got it fixed by my dads m8, but i went back to garage that did the mot, informed them of the situ, and pointed out that if id known the pads were so worn they would have got the job of fixing them.
their reply was that id only asked for the mot, its not up to them to point out wear on components.
as a new driver, i think id rather have had the OPs experience, then at least i could make a guess as to what to do.
ps, garage went bust a couple of years later.

MOT is for roadworthiness at that point, it’s not a service. Most garages would tell you, it costs them nothing after all and it’s crap that they didn’t- but you can’t blame them that you didn’t service the car right.

missingfrontallobe – Member

Let’s face it, the roadworthiness of a car 6 months post MOT can’t be justified by the MOT, which only really applies on the day of issue. Even 24 hours later a fault could have occured which would be a fail.

MFL – Spot on, an MOT only guarantees its roadworthyness at time of test

Martyn, the MOT tester is not allowed to remove any covers or do any dismantling etc so if he couldn’t physically see the state of your pads he’d have no idea how worn they were. As long as it passed the rolling road test then job done (and I’ve seen pads with no material left on pass that test)!