When is an MOT failure not an MOT failure? (Groupon Alert!)

s_b

Fortune82 wrote: »

OK, help me out here. If the solution according to 'in n out' is new discs and pads, then why should I be asking anyone to strip down the braking system?

I drive about 750 miles a week, wouldn't I have noticed something?

no worries here goes
31% inbalance is obviously a fail because your sheet shows it
what it means is one brake system on the front is working much harder than the other side,your car will have abs and will compensate for this so you wont even know
on strip down its highly likely a pad will be extremely worn and probably delaminating due to friction this cannot usually be assessed by a cursery glance on the ramp
did you mechanic get the wheels in the air and spin them?
in an out cant just charge for a cursory strip down and a freeing of a stuck pad or cylinder they have to make the ramp pay so they costed you a set of pads and discs and hope the caliper can be freed off if this is the problem if not you would get another call

your mechanic should know the problem and suggested you get it to him soonest so he could check your brakes with a full strip down
remember in your own words you do a fair mileage each week

Joe_Horner

ABS won't hide a brake imbalance unless you do all your braking hard enough to trigger ABS - if that's the case then you probably need new pads and shoes every month or two!

If the fail was for brake imbalance (RfR 3.7.2(d) : the limit is 25% on steered wheels but there should be almost none if everything's good) then pads and disks are only ONE of the possible reasons and there's no way they can diagnose the problem during the test. In fact, disks and pads are fairly unlikely to be the cause because there's not much to go wrong with them that's not covered by other RfRs:

3.7.2(b) - severe judder if the disks are warped
3.5.1(g) - if the pads are worn (limit is 1.5mm)
3.5.1(h) - if a disk is contaminated by oil etc (usually visible on at least the "inside")
3.5.1(i) - if a disk isseriously weakened ( from wear or cracking) or insecure

If it was one of those causes then the appropriate RfR should also have been on the fail sheet. eg:

3.5.1(h) - a brake disc or drum contaminated by brake fluid, oil or grease
3.7.2(d) - the out-of-balance of the brakes on the steered road wheels is greater than 25%

Doing as sb (probably correctly) suggests they have by quoting for disks and pads to "justify the ramp" then hoping to be able to fix the real fault while they're changing them is (imho) on the shady side of good practice. The honest thing to do would be to get the wheels off and look properly, charging if needed for the time that takes, so they can give an estimate of what NEEDS doing rather than what's profitable / commercially best to do.

But, if you will use cut-price fast MOT places that rely on high utilisation of the premises for profit, then you're never going to get quality professional service!

dacouch

ROY47 wrote: »

£20 mot = fail 95% of the time


brake discs and pads everytime ,cheap and easy for garage to sort out ,but not for you

normal price for mot Cars (up to 8 passenger seats) according to official site = £54.85

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/Mot/DG_4022514

cost of valet = anything from £20 to £300

where do they get their money back from ?

The MOT station will be paying about £10 of the charge to Groupon so they make even less...

cardinalbiggles

Road_Hog wrote: »

Checking the pads and discs is a fairly standard part of the MOT, it doesn't really need the wheel to be removed, just turn the steering to full lock.

Remember they are under the car as well so even easier to get to!

Scots

There's a garage here that charges £10 for an MOT and my m8's car passed no problem.

Road_Hog

Scots wrote: »

There's a garage here that charges £10 for an MOT and my m8's car passed no problem.

No comment.

pendulum

Scots wrote: »

There's a garage here that charges £10 for an MOT and my m8's car passed no problem.

I bet that conversation went something like:

"Yo geeze!"
--- "Alright tel. Need a MoT"
"MoTEE? No fuuukkkkin prob mate, giz a tenner"
--- "Alright mate. I'll be down the pub later mate... do you know if Pete's coming out tonight..."

No legit garage charges the public £10 without a catch.
Fact.
Obviously if he got it for £10 that is very good mates rates... or you made a mistake

dacouch

pendulum wrote: »

No legit garage charges the public £10 without a catch.
Fact.
Obviously if he got it for £10 that is very good mates rates... or you made a mistake

The catch being it's only available for cars aged under three years old

Scots

Hmmm I take it I'm being called a liar.

Dunno why I should suffer that.

I will get the name of the garage from my mate and post it here.

Then you can phone them yourself and find out what the deal is.

After that you can come back and apologise for the abuse.

I know it's somewhere on south side of Glasgow, maybe Thornliebank or Barrhead direction. Maybe somebody else on here knows it.

pendulum

Scots wrote: »

I will get the name of the garage from my mate and post it here.

Then you can phone them yourself and find out what the deal is.

Excellent... I thought about asking which garage it was, now I'm happy to see you volunteering to share the details...

Now time will tell whether you actually name this garage, or not.
Personally... I've heard the "I'll prove it, you'll see!" followed by silence, a little too often... :T but as ever, always happy to be proved wrong...