Car failed the MOT.

Associate
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MOT garages are monitored by DVSA on various metrics, one of which is pass rate vs other garages in the area. This is a common tactic to bring the pass rate down to avoid an inspection. Before the MOT records were made publicly accessible, less honest garages would simply not give the customer the fail certificate.

How much time do you want to waste pursuing this? An MOT fail for indicator lights followed by a pass will have absolutely no impact on the cars value.
 
Soldato
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+1 overeaction - they looked bad at the angle where he inspected car, and he then did you a favour by taking you at your word that you'd changed them.

I'd have probably done it at home if I knew it was a pita (presumably wasn't this bulb you changed before)
- you can come back within a couple of days for a free retest at place I go
 
Soldato
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The only fails/advisories which will hurt the resale value is stuff which hasn't been fixed. But theres so many dodgy MOTs around you can't even trust passes all of the time :/

What they did was MOT fraud though and you caught them in the act by saying you swapped the bulbs.
 
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Man of Honour
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Doesn't sound like there were any favours being done here, the tester looked at them again after he was under the impression they were new bulbs and decided they were good.
He didn't just say "don't worry about it mate you're right they're not that bad" and pass it.
 
Underboss
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no you can not get it removed from your history, bit odd about the MOT tester though, but i wouldn't worry about it, it wont effect cars history/value anyway, i would see it as , ok so bulbs are old, needed changing, no probs
 
Caporegime
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Kinda reminds me with me gen 7 celica when I took it to toyota for an mot (£20 special)

I'd spent an hour outside Europe parts fitting a new headlight bulb (awkward pos) and ran out of time so went to toyota and asked if they would kind fit the new bulb for the mot...no problem they said.

So what did they do? Fail the car on mot due to bulb, then fit bulb and then pass it...why didnt they just fit the bulb then mot it??

Also then they claimed i had to pay £40 for mot and we had a discussion about the offering me for £20
 
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So what did they do? Fail the car on mot due to bulb, then fit bulb and then pass it...why didnt they just fit the bulb then mot it??

I A car should never fail on a bulb out or low tread on tyres, low washer fluid, as every driver should keep on top of the basic maintenance. Takes a couple of minutes to walk around a car even on MOT week to check everything is OK.
 
Soldato
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I A car should never fail on a bulb out or low tread on tyres, low washer fluid, as every driver should keep on top of the basic maintenance. Takes a couple of minutes to walk around a car even on MOT week to check everything is OK.

To play devils advocate, with more and more cars coming with LEDs as standard that need entire assemblies replacing, I imagine if you got unlucky and an LED failed in the run up to an MOT, there might not be sufficient time for a garage to order/replace an assembly. But I guess on the flip side LEDs should last a lot longer and this situation shouldn't be all that common.
 
Soldato
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Am I the only one who sees this as a complete overreaction? You said yourself they have been excellent, now you need to find a new garage to use for something fairly trivial IMO.

I can see what you're saying, but at the same time I can completely see what the OP is saying. It's just really annoying. I had this with my girlfriends car at the last MOT - I genuinely couldn't work out why they had listed it as an advisory. The bulb is as orange and easy to see as any that you'll ever see.

My inner conspiracy theorist is questioning whether or not they have to fail a certain number of cars to be within a national "average" and this is the way they have chosen to do it, but at minimal cost to the customer?
 
Soldato
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They just rang me.

Let’s just say we had a bit of a disagreement. He said we did you a favour by passing it, and seemed incredibly concerned I’d spoken to the DVSA. He kept on saying “you’ve dropped us right in it now” “we should have got it back in the workshop and let you see it”

I replied that at no point was this seemingly a favour to me and as far as they were concerned, I’d changed them.
He just kept on repeating that I’d dropped him in it and if he had to call them to have it removed, it was going to get substantially worse. In the end I told him not to bother anymore and I would go somewhere else in future.

yes, still in Hoo. This was a place called Autotrend in Chatham.

How have you dropped him right in it - I feel like *they* are overreacting? All he would have to say is that he made a mistake, that they didn't look that orange in the workshop and that he acknowledges this and if the issue ever comes up again he'll move the car to a better position to assess them. This is supported by the fact he failed for both bulbs.

It's not like he's charged an old person £200 to fit two light bulbs or has been found ripping people off for exorbitant amounts of money. It's clearly not something that has been financially motivated - he even said that his guys couldn't do it for him. If it had been financially motivated he would have offered to have them changed and charged 30 mins labour. He's probably made about £2 on some bulbs. Everything sounds like it must have been a mistake - one which they should just acknowledge, and move on.
 
Caporegime
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I A car should never fail on a bulb out or low tread on tyres, low washer fluid, as every driver should keep on top of the basic maintenance. Takes a couple of minutes to walk around a car even on MOT week to check everything is OK.

I changed 1 bulb (wanted to do a pair) and literally gave them.the other bulb and they said they would fit for me...my question was why would they fail it then fit it?? Not just fit and pass first time?
 
Soldato
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I changed 1 bulb (wanted to do a pair) and literally gave them the other bulb and they said they would fit for me...my question was why would they fail it then fit it?? Not just fit and pass first time?

In that circumstance - they should have carried out the work you asked them to prior to doing the MOT. But people who work at these garages often aren't the sharpest knives...
 
Caporegime
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In that circumstance - they should have carried out the work you asked them to prior to doing the MOT. But people who work at these garages often aren't the sharpest knives...

Thats what I thought too, they have a took and could do it in about 2 mins took me ages and scraped knuckles.. so I asked if they could do the other themselves...

That was at toyota main dealership too..
 
Soldato
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I changed 1 bulb (wanted to do a pair) and literally gave them.the other bulb and they said they would fit for me...my question was why would they fail it then fit it?? Not just fit and pass first time?

unless they knew the bulb change was trivial, you'd do it after.
the car might fail for other reasons, or mot take longer than expected, so you wouldn't then bother , and, mot schedule with shared equipment for other mot mechanics might be disrupted doing it before .. don't think it's a conspiracy, just logic. - paperwork re-issue is pretty quick anyway.


aside - don't know if there has been a thread on this, but some newer cars often have indistinct & uni-directional front indicators,
and don't seeem to have one on the side or mirror , to back it up. I think its these fully integrated light modules, where indicators are set back, are to blame.
 
Associate
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Kinda reminds me with me gen 7 celica when I took it to toyota for an mot (£20 special)

I'd spent an hour outside Europe parts fitting a new headlight bulb (awkward pos) and ran out of time so went to toyota and asked if they would kind fit the new bulb for the mot...no problem they said.

So what did they do? Fail the car on mot due to bulb, then fit bulb and then pass it...why didnt they just fit the bulb then mot it??

Also then they claimed i had to pay £40 for mot and we had a discussion about the offering me for £20

MOT is supposed to be done "as presented" meaning the tester should not go around the car fixing defects before the MOT.
 
Caporegime
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I’m struggling to see your real issue here. My 2012 Focus failed on ‘bulbs not orange enough’ last year. It passed that same day. What’s the issue? It’s a Kia Sportage, not a Ferrari. As it gets older it will likely fail on more things, will you want these fails removed from the record every time too? Imagine going to buy a car that only had passes on the MOT records for a decade or more only to find out the car had five failures including a couple serious enough to make the car dangerous to drive yet the history shows nothing? You’d feel like the car is being misrepresented or you’re being lied to. On something potentially valuable, say a F355 giving the tester £500 to call VOSA and ask for the failure to be removed from the record would be worth it. On a Kia? Not worth it.

Stop stressing, it’s not going to make the car any more valuable.
 
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