Advice - MOT Fail & Advisories before buying car

insomnious

Hello everyone,

This is my first post, however I feel this is probably the best place to get a correct answer!

I waiting on my new car (2nd hand, 13 plate Peugeot 308 diesel estate, 37,000 miles) being services and MOTd, however checking the Vehicle MOT history page at Gov.uk, it has failed it's MOT 3 days ago (which was done by the dealership), and it failed with the following reasons and advisories;

Reason(s) for failure
offside rear Registration plate lamp not working (1.1.C.1d)
front Brake pad(s) less than 1.5 mm thick (3.5.1g)

Advisory notice item(s)
rear Brake pad(s) wearing thin (3.5.1g)
brake disc worn, pitted or scored, but not seriously weakened All 4 (3.5.1i)
nearside rear Tyre worn close to the legal limit ON LIMIT (4.1.E.1)
nearside front plastic inner arch liner fouling spring

Obviously I'm concerned by the number of things on this, and given that this is it's first MOT from new, I'm even more reluctant to continue with the purchase. I've paid a £100 reservation despoit, so I haven't paid the remaining £5800, however I just need some advice.

Obviously the dealership will have it pass it's MOT, but is it under any legal obligation to clear the advisories? They're mostly brake related which are a safety concern.

As I haven't actually paid for the car, I want to make sure it drives away completely fault free.

If the advisories aren't fixed, is it reasonable to try and bring the price down and fix them myself?

If the worst comes to the worst, and I decide to walk away, can I get my deposit back?

Any help is appreciated and advice is appreciated guys!

mr_accountant

[FONT=&quot]TBH the fail items are waer and tear, as you say the light bulb and front pads will be changed to pass

the advisories, you take the history sheet to them and ask them to replace and see what they say, if not ask them to reduce the price, if its a genuine dealer I would except them to do one of the two

having said all that make you wonder what the ‘technicians’ ever did when the car was in for a service, changed oil and filter and that’s it.[/FONT]

insomnious

The car was an ex-Motability car, so has had 2 full Peugeot services, however from experience from my last car, this is really just visual checks, top-ups, filter changes etc.


Wear and tear is fine, however I don;t want to have to foot the bill for 4 new brakes and pads right out the garage.

AdrianC

Negotiate. It's pointless chucking a set of pads on if the discs are that bad.

But bear in mind they'll lob the cheapest nastiest tyre they can find on - I'd say to them "Look, you replace the discs and pads all round, and secure that arch liner - and I'll do the tyre."

But, as the other reply says, what kind of a lame excuse for a "service" has it had...? There is no way it has had a dealer service, because that will CERTAINLY include a check of the brakes.

Herzlos

insomnious wrote: »

Wear and tear is fine, however I don;t want to have to foot the bill for 4 new brakes and pads right out the garage.

Ask them to put new pads and discs all round as part of the deal. See if they'll also give you a matching tyre to replace the worn one.

Joe_Horner

Motability will have been dealer serviced - it's a condition of the scheme and fully included in the payments anyway, so why would anyone pay extra to have it done elsewhere?

The last service is quite likely to have been some time ago, depending on when it fell in relation to the lease period. The service record should show when. But the wrong driver can easily turn a new set of brake pads into scrap in a matter of a few months so the condition of pads don't necessarily reflect on the servicing.

Don't forget that "disks worn / scored / pitted" as an MOT advisory does not mean there's a problem with them or that they'll need replacing in the near future.

It might mean that or it might mean a keen tester who's covering himself by picking up the first hint of a lip at the edges. A disk advised for that one year can be (and often will be) passed without comment by a different tester for the next 2 or 3 years in a row.

In fact, the history on our Mondeo shows a worn disk advisory since 2011 but the disks are perfectly serviceable still - and confirmed as such by our normal tester who was given free reign to change them if he wanted while doing a wheel bearing recently.

Without seeing them we can't possibly know, so drawing any conclusions about whether or not pads on their own will be ok simply isn't possible.

The bulb is (obviously) minor - could have blown as they switched it on for the test.

The front pads (at least) will be done to get the MOT and it'd be worth asking them to do the rears as well for peace of mind but, again "wearing thin" is an entirely subjective call by the tester - I've had pads advised for that with over 5mm of meat left before simply because they were noticably thinner than the ones at the other end of the car (which I'd replaced a couple of months before).

The tyre is worth pushing them on because they've highlighted "ON LIMIT" rather than just advising that it's close. If it's really that close it could theoretically be below the limit by the time they hand it over to you even being shifted around their car park.

Wheel arch liner is a simple fix that they should be doing anyway, it'll be a plastic clip or (at worst) a self tapper and, like the number plate bulb, could have come loose at any time so doesn't reflect at all on the previous service history any more than a fail for an empty washer bottle would!

The simple solution is to contact them and see what they've done / are doing before getting worried about any of it.


eta: Also, remember that the DS way of doing an MOT and service is to do the MOT first. That's what DVSA recommend and it makes a lot of sense to do so for a whole lot of reasons in most cases. Not least of which is it avoids repeating inspections unnecessarily - which someone will be paying for. If the garage is staying profitable then ultimately that someone will be the customers !

insomnious

AdrianC wrote: »

But, as the other reply says, what kind of a lame excuse for a "service" has it had...? There is no way it has had a dealer service, because that will CERTAINLY include a check of the brakes.

The car was advertised with full service history, however I'll check the handbook when I'm next in. I've no reason to doubt the garage based on their reputation, and I know they're not to blame for shoddy services. Is it reasonable to ask for a service, too, as well as ther MOT repairs?

s_b

with the car being ex mobility check all the paintwork carefully for proper repairs been done this is possibly the reason the inner arch cover is loose after having say a wing replaced
i would expect no advisories for the price you will be paying by the way

Joe_Horner

s_b wrote: »

with the car being ex mobility check all the paintwork carefully for proper repairs been done this is possibly the reason the inner arch cover is loose after having say a wing replaced
i would expect no advisories for the price you will be paying by the way

Personally, I'd only "expect" no advisories from a tester who was waving things through to make them look good.

Advisories are your friend and their presence gives at least some evidence that the MOT has been done properly rather than a paper-stamping exercise. Really don't understand why people don't get that sometimes!

Joe_Horner

insomnious wrote: »

[...] Is it reasonable to ask for a service, too, as well as ther MOT repairs?

From your Op you were waiting for it to be "serviced and MOTd" anyway, so not quite sure what asking for another service would achieve?

As I pointed out above, if they're following the DVSA recommendations, the service will be done after the MOT so it'd be perfectly normal to have things like brake pads flagged up on the MOT having had 12 months use since the last service was done.

s_b

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Personally, I'd only "expect" no advisories from a tester who was waving things through to make them look good.

Advisories are your friend and their presence gives at least some evidence that the MOT has been done properly rather than a paper-stamping exercise. Really don't understand why people don't get that sometimes!

an advisory is what it is
as already said its the tester who sets them but for it to be a tyre and brakes i expect them to be changed
the last mot tester i used he started getting all silly putting things like slight underbody corrosion when this was a 5 year old car ,how can i sell this when new buyer reads this on his fresh mot receipt or worse on the net before he comes to collect