can you complain to trading standards if a MOT fails unfairly?

londonTiger

I keep my car in good condition, however I'm no mechanic, so I dont really know what is going on under the bonnet and under the car. could be punctured exhaust and I would be none the wiser. But it should be fine.

My mot is coming up, checked all the usual and should be fine. the only thing that might be an issue is emissions, the car runs fine, exhaust is cleary and mpg is decent so not running rich, but I have an intermittent emissions worskhop messages that comes up now and again.

based on the car make forum, the oxygen sensor is starting to show age and I need to buy a new sensor for bloody £120.

I am confident that it should still pass MOT though, im thinking of going somehwehre cheap that will do the mot for 30 quid. however im concerned that the might just try and find faults and use the emissions workshop message to get me to buy a new exhaust and all the rest of it.

if i fail an mot, and then take it to a council run mot, can i complain to the mot body about the original mot tester who failed me to get me to get unnecessary work done? heard about a few people getting quoted thousands of pounds of work to pass mot and then just driving to a council mot centre and passing with no advisories what so ever.

Loganfire

So you know they maybe a problem but because your doing it on the cheap if a garage fails your car on the mot because of the emissions you want to complain about it? as you do not want to pay for a new sensor which by the sounds of it you know is F*****, even though you don't know about cars.

My advise is take it to a good garage where they will show you a print out of the emissions saying it as pass or failed, if it fails then your going to have to bloody pay the £120.

redux

I don't think that complaints about MOTs go to Trading Standards. You can find info on the .gov website.

I don't see why you are rehearsing a complaint in advance, about something you have some doubts about already.

spiro

So if you think a garage that is also an MOT test centre is going to try and rip you off go to a place that is solely an MOT test centre in the first place. Simples.

forgotmyname

How will you know if they failed it unfairly if you know nothing of how an MOT works, What is and is not acceptable or down to the testers judgement?

Why not get it serviced where they will check these things?

dispossessed

If your vehicle fails the M.O.T. there is an appeals procedure in place.

You can also appeal against it passing but, I suspect, that very few people do so.

As others have already said - take it to a Council MOT centre or an establishment that only undertake MOTs. They have no significant financial interest in failing any vehicle.

maninthestreet

£120 for an oxygen sensor? What car is it?

Mrs_Arcanum

Answer is to follow Martins advice & go to a Government MoT testing place. They have no axe to grind or profits to make in failing vehicles.

However, there are things like brakes and other hidden parts that can cause a failure and not show up on a computerised diagnostic.

Joe_Horner

dispossessed wrote: »

If your vehicle fails the M.O.T. there is an appeals procedure in place.

You can also appeal against it passing but, I suspect, that very few people do so.

Surprisingly, there are usually MORE "inverted appeals" (appeals against a pass) than normal appeals in a given year. Not only that, but more appeals against pass succeed than appeals against fails, whixh suggests there are more garages passing borderline cases than "failing stuff to get more work".

The stats for 2008 are here:

http://www.vosa.gov.uk/vosa/repository/09%20174.pdf

Note that I didn't select that year in any way except it happened to be the first year Google threw up a link to!


OP, if the car fails on emissions then it fails. There will be a print-out from the exhaust tester attached which will show what limits it failed on.

Note that with modern cars, emissions can fail long before they have a noticeable effect on either running or economy because the limits are so low - the difference in fuel use between (say) 0.2% carbon monoxide and 0.3% is miniscule.

It's also possible to fail purely on the reading from the lambda sensor (the O2 sensor you're talking about). If this is out of range then it's a fail in its own right regardless of what the actual emissions are. That's not down to the garage, it's what the MOT rules say:

http://www.transportoffice.gov.uk/crt/doitonline/bl/mottestingmanualsandguides/mottestingmanualsandguides.htm

Lum

Also worth noting that if the lambda sensor is dodgy then the car will either run lean risking serious damage, or run rich, wasting petrol.

It's generally worth replacing it.

Unless it's the one after the cat that has failed. That's purely there to check emissions and nag you about them, it has no effect on the running of the car, although the American version of the MOT uses the reading from that sensor rather than an emissions probe. The cheap option is to replace it with a resistor.

I'm also surprised that it's £120 and would like to know what car it is. I've never paid more than £50 for one and it should only be half an hour's work to replace, unless it's in a silly place.

harveybobbles

Why not just use the Council run MOT centre anyway?