Vehicle Testing - What A Scam

Colin_Kee

I’m sure this topic has been covered before, but now that our politicians are actually doing their jobs, maybe this is something they could look at getting rid of. It’s that time of year again, Yip the MOT is due.

Why the heck can’t we have a similar system to the England, Scotland & Wales where the Garage that carries out the repairs and preparation for the MOT can Issue the certificate? Why exactly do we have this system of using Test centres. OK use them for Buses, lorries and the likes which are large vehicles, but come on, for all cars too. What a waste of money.. I really don’t agree with anyone who says safety standards will fall etc. It wouldn’t be worth it to the garage issuing the certificates as they’d loose their license to carry out the tests if they did have a case against them.

Basically it’s just another Government Quango keeping people in public sector jobs.. Get rid of it & spend the money where it matters!!

Easymoney

By law the max that a garage or testing agency can charge is around £50 for a car, So £30.50 isnt so bad.

Plus its an MOT every year for the mainland too, there was proposal to shift this to every 2 years. An obvious safety concern with a bi-annual test would be tyre tread depth.

In the mainland it is not unknown for those garages with repair and MOT facilitiy to stick the arm in and take advantage of those who are mechanically ignorant.

At least the DVTA is an independent test station.

OK the booking/appointment system here might not be that efficient but; they do have state of the art equipment for testing brake torque etc

maveli

Easymoney wrote: »

In the mainland it is not unknown for those garages with repair and MOT facilitiy to stick the arm in and take advantage of those who are mechanically ignorant.

At least the DVTA is an independent test station.

100% in agreement. Just mention MOT to any garage here and they will charge you atleast £50.00 for an "MOT service" and guess what they will do if they are going to do the actual MOT.

darwin-rover

I would say a lot of garages in GB see someone young or a dizzy blonde and probably make up things that need to be fixed on the car . They usually give "free" retests if you take the car back to them as well .
Average MoT cost in GB seems to be about £45 , so £30.50 for a totally independent check is hardly breaking the bank .
Have also heard stories about ppl taking dodgy cars into garages and because they know someone at the garage it gets a brand new MoT cert , prob without the car even being looked at .

ginger_nuts

I no someone who lives in England but gets there Mot done here when they are over on holiday .They say its cheaper that way.

ballyblack

heard stories about ppl taking dodgy cars into garages and because they know someone at the garage it gets a brand new MoT cert , prob without the car even being looked at .

This practice is most rare, as the garage owner's business would be ruined if this ever came to light.

It was probably dodgy forged English MOT certificates that give rise to these rumours in the first place

The NI system is more fairer because of the uniformity of the test. Also its not in the examiner's interest to pass or fail a particular car.

IvanOpinion

I would pretty much agree with the previous answers but what cheeses me off is that you have to pay £17.50 (or whatever for a retest) .. especially when all that was worng is that one of the tyres was border line ... surely someone could come out look at the tyre and issue the certificate (also especially when I have seen all the wheels on a car being changed at the gates of the MOT centre)

Ivan

wishiwasarichgirl

does anyone know if the english MOT cert. is the same as the NI one? cos my cars due for its 1st MOT soon, and it will be done in England, but I still get it taxed in NI and will have to show the MOT cert.

ooo000ooo

wishiwasarichgirl wrote: »

does anyone know if the english MOT cert. is the same as the NI one? cos my cars due for its 1st MOT soon, and it will be done in England, but I still get it taxed in NI and will have to show the MOT cert.

I think it looks different but is still legal.

thetope

i'm fairly happy with the system here actually... it was originally set up like that to stop racketeering by paramilitary organisations... you only need to take a search through the rest of this forum to find people across the water who have been scalped by their local garage for MOT work

motorguy

IvanOpinion wrote: »

I would pretty much agree with the previous answers but what cheeses me off is that you have to pay £17.50 (or whatever for a retest) .. especially when all that was worng is that one of the tyres was border line ... surely someone could come out look at the tyre and issue the certificate (also especially when I have seen all the wheels on a car being changed at the gates of the MOT centre)

Ivan

If you've had a decent mechanic check over the car previously, then he will have replaced the borderline tyre beforehand....

Personally, i've had experiences whereby they have said, look that tyre or whatever is borderline, bring the car back tomorrow and ask for me and i will pass it then. but thats mot centre dependent i guess