My expensive car incident. Advice please.........

The MOT is there to check how road worthy the car is.
The fact that is had only just passed is neither here nore there. It's just pure bad luck. Having already spent over £300 on it, is it really worth a new engine at £800??? Surely you could get a reconditioned one for cheaper than that. My mate had one fitted to a 3 Series BMW not so long back and the recon engine only cost him £300.

There seems to be a common misconception that an MOT guarantees the condition of the car, including the mechanical aspects. It does not. A car could even pass an MOT with a head gasket failure so long as they can drive it in and out of the test bay and it passes the emissions tests.

A service is what you want if you want some idea of the condition of the car's operation and to maintain it.

There is certainly no point in contacting the MOT station as they did not test the engine. If you never took it for a service including the all important oil and filter change etc then it could well be that such neglect has killed the car.

Relating to your other post, if your timing belt snapped/slipped - it is your responsibility to ensure it is swapped in line with the manufacturer's recommendations. If it has never been swapped, at 6 years old, the age of the belt most likely caused the failure. Replacing the time belt is much cheaper than dealing with the aftermath of a belt failing - as it seems you have found out.

Sorry I could not give any more helpful information. Hopefully whichever path you choose it will be an insight into making sure everything the car needs doing gets done in future to help prevent such events.

If you have evidence the belt was changed in line with recommendations you may have a case against someone.

goldspanners wrote: »

this is quite unbelievable how many people think an MOT is a service.

I wonder if we should get crabman to put a sticky on the forum? But I suppose the misconception if it is so problematic is for VOSA to address. Although AFAIK it's mentioned on the MOT certificate itself, and also in the leaflet available at all MOT test centres, although not explicitly enough it seems.

anewman wrote: »

I wonder if we should get crabman to put a sticky on the forum? But I suppose the misconception if it is so problematic is for VOSA to address. Although AFAIK it's mentioned on the MOT certificate itself, and also in the leaflet available at all MOT test centres, although not explicitly enough it seems.

i doubt a sticky would help,people dont read a bit of paper they have just paid £40 for so i doubt they read a sticky?

TheImportanceOfBeingIdle wrote: »

You'll find the engine is very relevant t the MoT. How else do they check emissions? Fart down the exhaust and measure the time it takes to exit?

It's only the emissions that are important. The engine could be near death and pass emissions tests. Failure of emissions test does give some indication of the condition of the engine, and exhaust etc, but they don't do a full strip down and re-build (that would take ages and cost alot of money if you wasn't doing it yourself.)

So long as maintenance is kept to, cam belt change, oil and filter change, coolant renewal etc etc problems like severe engine failure tend not to happen.

The MOT certainly isn't any kind of guarantee against failure or warranty. If it was, it would cost a whole lot more to get an MOT and noone would have to pay anything if their car needed a repair as surely our valid MOT would cover any possible eventuality?!