Does passenger seat need to be fitted for MOT?

vaio

Inactive wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::D

You are bound to have some talent.;)

Yep, anyone who uses the Arkell/Pressdram signature must have talent (or at least a nice dry sense of humour)

LandyAndy

vaio wrote: »

Yep, anyone who uses the Arkell/Pressdram signature must have talent (or at least a nice dry sense of humour)

I'd prefer a nice dry Sancerre.:)

epninety

Slightly digging up a dead thread, but while looking for something else I spotted in the MoT Testers handbook...

(Appendix H Section 11)

11 VT32 – Advisory Notice (see Appendix 7 – Example 6) This is used to advise the vehicle presenter of any items that in opinion of the NT require written notification. For example:
· a testable item which is only just passable and may need attention soon; or · an item which is not within the scope of the MOT test and may need attention; or · any peculiarity of the vehicle (e.g. front passenger seat missing)

Which implies the missing front seat should be noted as an advisory (and hence not a failure). Presumably this notice would put the resposnibility on the owner in the event of some later incident involving the front seat.

darich

Lirin wrote: »

MOT's in NI are far, far stricter than on the mainland, yet I have had them pass/ fail with entirely stupid reasons.
Set electronic tests here- brakes, shocks, etc rely on set paramaters to pass. Other things- seatbelts, lights etc are discretionary in testing.
My coupe passed recently with the trainee tester switching the lights on and the experienced tester checking them. They got an instant pass! The fact that he tested the sidelights didn't seem to register with him!
I'd once had 4-5 guys doing my emission testing, and asking me to rev the car up- you don't need to do that for emission testing- in fact, my car is prior to the date, so doesn't require emission testing- they weren't aware of that. Turns out they liked my exhaust and wanted to know where I bought it!
Passed as mentioned above with only drivers seat, but all seatbelts were fitted and working correctly, even if there wasn't a seat for them.
I failed once for brakes being too new- passed 10 seconds later after I did a couple of emergency stops at the side of the testing centre.
I've passed with no lights, as the tester saw them blow as I turned in.
I've had guys pore over everything under my bonnet, and others give it a cursory glance.
There is a certain degree of discretion used in the job- and it's up to each tester to interpret it.

If the tests are "far far stricter", why would your car be tested for something unnecessary (indicating incompetent testers), passed with failed lights (lights not working when test carried out) and tested by being given a "cursory glance"???

Hammyman

sassy-one wrote: »

I think you will find that it is in fact an MOT failure.

I had a car once which failed an MOT as the rear seat had been removed to do a repair, the test station failed it and after looking online it clearly states that it is in fact an MOT failure.

Get your facts correct :money:

From the MOT testers manual:

5.1:

If a belt is fitted, but there is no corresponding seat it is NOT considered to be a seat belt, for the purpose of this inspection.

anewman

Hammyman wrote: »

From the MOT testers manual:

5.1:

If a belt is fitted, but there is no corresponding seat it is NOT considered to be a seat belt, for the purpose of this inspection.

And with that the thread's question is fully answered

Lum

I suspect this is one of those grey areas that even the MOT testers would be unsure on, meaning that results will vary from station to station.

FWIW I once owned a bangernomics Cat D Volvo 460 that I bought for £100 and had a nice mixture of panels in various shades of pink (car was originally red). Took it for an MOT and it passed on everything but the rear offside seatbelt which had a small nick in the fabric.

Rules said that for a free partial retest the car can't leave the garage so in their car park I took out the back seats and all 3 seatbelts, left them in the garage's car park and told them to do my free retest. The guy was laughing his !!!! off and passed me. Threw the seats in the boot and took them down the tip on the way home and drove the car like that for another year. Probably saved a small amount of petrol too.

Velcro_Hotdog

I have no back seats or passenger seat in one of my cars and never once failed an MOT.