Kwik Fit £30 MOT...Scam???

Thrifty_Ruby

Hi All,

Need some advise! My Husband took my Fiat Panda ActiveEco 1.1 for its first MOT Its only done 10.000miles & has been seviced & is like showroom! We usually use a local guy who takes our cars for their MOT's but as this was the first one for my Panda we took advantage of the Special Offer at Kwik Fit for £30. I booked online & my Husband took it in on Tuesday! Shock Horror it failed on Emissions! My Husband is NO petrol head so was told by the staff that there was a minor leak of exhaust gases from exhaust! Then the guy said he would fill it???? My husband asked how much it would cost & he said £20. The guy then took the car for a run & retested & said i tpassed but he was removing the Advisory item (Exhaust leak) off the MOT form!
Now I feel Scammed!!! On the bill it stated I have been charged for BG44K Fuel Additive for £20 & no mention of a repair to the Exhaust! This sounds very fishy to me as I am sure Kwik Fit don't do anything for nothing!
Help!!! Have I been ripped off?
Dx

TrickyWicky

MOT rates are set by VOSA. £30 is below the minimum VOSA rate so the MOT station are basically fishing for business and mugs. Congratulations, you fitted the bill perfectly.

One of the large windscreen companies were recently running a free MOT campaign valid for 13 months and transferable to another person. I honestly cringed at the ad as it's clear whats going to happen to all those mugs.

[Deleted User]

Kwik Fit are a SCAM full stop.

They did the BG44K trick on me too but I got it refunded after I complained to head office.

Here is the link to the thread I started last year about Kwik Fit's BG44K scam... https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4306407

ballyblack

took advantage of the Special Offer at Kwik Fit for £30.

The advantage is always with Rip Off Kwik-Fit

londonTiger

there is no way a fuel additive will work as quickly as that if indeed it makes any difference at all. (I think I blew my lambda sensors after using fuel system cleaners, since using the labda warning light is always on).

Anyway, for a fuel cleaner to work you need to put it in and then take it through a spritied drive on the motorway. You can't just add it and then idle the engine for a fe wminutes and rev it to 4K and fix the problem.

Unfortunately emissions test are easily to fake. You can make emissions look high or low depending on the morals of the garage.

They can get you to arrive early to the test centre and have you park for 30 minutes and then let the engine cool - with a cool engine and exhaust the emissions reading will be high. OTOH you can take a motorway cruise just before the MOT test, and do the emissions test the first thing and any banger will pass the emissions.

Moto2

Thrifty_Ruby wrote: »

The guy then took the car for a run & retested & said i tpassed but he was removing the Advisory item (Exhaust leak) off the MOT form!

If it was an advisory, it wasn't a fail in the first place

Next time use the local council testing station
Ours only charges £35 anyway

londonTiger

whuile were on the subject, you can easily fake the emissions test by using biofuel or even alcohol fuel (with some modifications to the engine).

OddballJamie

TrickyWicky wrote: »

MOT rates are set by VOSA. £30 is below the minimum VOSA rate so the MOT station are basically fishing for business and mugs. Congratulations, you fitted the bill perfectly.

One of the large windscreen companies were recently running a free MOT campaign valid for 13 months and transferable to another person. I honestly cringed at the ad as it's clear whats going to happen to all those mugs.

I'm not sticking up for Kwikfit, far from it. But judging a MOT test centre purely on price is nonsense. There is no minimum VOSA rate only a maximum one - https://www.gov.uk/mot-test-fees

My local council test centre is £33 only 10% more than Kwikfit, are they fishing for business? Course not, they don't even do repairs.

arcon5

TrickyWicky wrote: »

MOT rates are set by VOSA. £30 is below the minimum VOSA rate so the MOT station are basically fishing for business and mugs. Congratulations, you fitted the bill perfectly.

One of the large windscreen companies were recently running a free MOT campaign valid for 13 months and transferable to another person. I honestly cringed at the ad as it's clear whats going to happen to all those mugs.

MOT rates are set by VOSA, they are capped by them. And £30 isn't that cheap, it fact it's merely competitive. Especially when independent MOT stations like weonlymot only charge £35.

salubrious

Kwik fit strike again with their immoral practices.

It's a shame your husband didn't ask to see the initial emissions print out report, which they have to supply.

My guess is there would have been nothing wrong with the emissions.

You could ask your local guy to take a look at the exhaust to see if it has been fiilled (i bet it hasn't been touched) and then go from there with a phone call to kwik fit customer services.

I agree it sounds very fishy.

[Deleted User]

It doesn't matter what the cost of the MOT was, it still remains the fact that Thrifty Ruby was conned out of £20 for BG44K treatment that was not needed. Also that fact that the emissions fail for staged to make it look like that using the £20 can of snake oil would fix it there and then. Which has already been said that you would need to run a tank of fuel through and drive a few hundred miles before you would see any results (if).

What Thrifty Ruby needs to do is email a complaint to Kwik Fit and also post of the experience across social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. They don't like that.