Buying a second hand van with dodgy MOT

Joe_Horner

jimjames wrote: »

Curious to know how they do that assessment. Say for example a tyre was bald so is MOT failure, how do they know that the tyre was in that condition at time of MOT and that the tyre hasn't been replaced since?

They rely on their experience and judgement.

Say, in the example you give, the tyre is genuinely bald (ie: no tread left) then - if an MOT was correctly passed recently - it's lost at least 1.6mm of rubber since the test.

If the test was 2 weeks ago and the car's done 100 miles since then that's stretching the bounds of credibility. Yes, you could have been doing donuts and burn outs in the local car park but it's unlikely. So they'd likely uphold the appeal.

In the other hand, if it's down to 1.2mm but has done 2k miles in the 4 weeks since test then the benefit of the doubt would probably go to the tester.

Similarly for other things - they have a lot of experience of how fast things like balljoints typically wear, or bushes typically deteriorate, including brand specific info for known problems. So something that clearly wouldn't have passed given the time and mileage since the test will be picked up, something that might have worn since the test won't - especially if the tester had advised for it on the original test.

jimjames

Joe_Horner wrote: »

They rely on their experience and judgement.

Say, in the example you give, the tyre is genuinely bald (ie: no tread left) then - if an MOT was correctly passed recently - it's lost at least 1.6mm of rubber since the test.

My example was a thought was that the tyres tested orginally were not the ones on the car at the time of retest. I've had cars before with 2 sets of tyres so in theory if one was bald I could swap it for the test and back again after if I was a devious motor dealer. In this case there is no way the VOSA inspector would know and would unfairly penalise the MOT tester who has done nothing wrong. Probably not many other items that could be swapped as easily as tyres but was interested to know the process.

salubrious

jimjames wrote: »

My example was a thought was that the tyres tested orginally were not the ones on the car at the time of retest. I've had cars before with 2 sets of tyres so in theory if one was bald I could swap it for the test and back again after if I was a devious motor dealer. In this case there is no way the VOSA inspector would know and would unfairly penalise the MOT tester who has done nothing wrong. Probably not many other items that could be swapped as easily as tyres but was interested to know the process.

I've been to a few appeal procedures over the years and dvsa will not discipline a tester if a bad tyre is found under appeal. In my experience that has always been the case. Even if a ve was brave enough to try it. I'd say it is very likely that an appeal by the tester against the decision of the ve would be upheld.

On saying that, the op has nothing to lose by going for an appeal, it isn't going to cost anything other than a couple of hours of their time. I'm intrigued to know what the problem items are though?

lozzaj83

It is a cv boot with a lot of give.
The engine also has 'black death' where the injector has been leaking diesel and oil so it smokes when it gets hot. Since purchasing we have driven it for a maximum of 20 mins and smoke pours out of it!! Something that wasn't mentioned!