we are all normal people. I started testing when i was twenty. all test station have to have a viewing area so you can watch but be warned if you watch you may get a harsher test than if you left it with them. just don't act like a plank and don't talk to the tester like he a prat, he is going to decide whether to past your van advises easily turn to fails.
thanx for your advice 666, i am no stranger to commercial garages and ,if u take the time to cast an eye over past threads re mot "s you will find i am agreeable to a.n.other qualified individual , unknown to me giving me an official opinion, pass/fail over my bus.Further ,if by my viewing, a tester is concerned enough to the ,extent i coped a harsher test it says a lot re him ,his opinion of his own work.I would hope? he (assuming a he)would crack on ,if he feels my being "there" is a comment on his ability of his work ,perhaps he is in wrong job(see other posts re mot testers >showing /advicing /discussing vehicle on test with owner), and , as you seem to know so much ,perhaps you would post what "acting like a plank is"? and further ,i speak as i feel ,thank you.
The young lad at our MOT station tried to emissions test my bus. He said it would fail. i then pointed out to him that as it was built in 1972 it didnt need one. He started over and it passed. did me a favour though as it told me it was running rich.
Although i have never had to test my bus (its always in some state of restoration) when i get my bike tested i will always, if possible try, and book it for a time that's quiet and the tester has time to chat after the test and give me time to tweak anything and do a retest straight away.
Its always nice to have a friendly tester i took mine to a garage 6 years ago for the 1st time and got chatting to the bloke who said to me " ahh crap its one of those horrible camper things " and i though great its gonna fail , 6 years on im still going there as he turned out to be a good laugh , although he does drag the dustbin and broom over every time i go there now "standing joke " . last year i asked if i could have a butchers at it underneath when on the ramps , he said yeah gave me the inspection light and went off to finish his bacon sandwich and coffee , on his return he said "well anything i should know ?" i said i dunno your the tester and he replied "suppose i had better have a look then " . so all in all most testers are fair and once you get talking most of them will take an interest as its something different , but you do get the odd jobs worth who take things down to the letter and fail stuff purely because they don't understand what there looking at and are playing it safe . so its always best to hang around to in a polite way explain to them things that maybe there unsure about and then they can decide fairly if something is safe or not , or if its isn't applicable to the test
I'm enjoying this thread. One thing though. The MOT is a safety test and a very cheap one at that and even better, they make you fix it . Often it's the only "garage" time a vehicle gets. If somethings unsafe I don't want a ticket saying it's ok. What bac says has merit - we have two testers, one's an old boy who's done it since late bays were new and the other not for very long. If the younger guy comes up with a great long list of rusty fails I show the older guy the fail sheet and he says "do that, that and that, don't bother with this, this and this, then bring it back". You cannot expect someone with 3 months experience to understand the construction of every type of vehicle produced in the last 50 years.
But I never hang about, orif I do I chat to the other guys, have a coffee in the office or whatever. I don't enjoy having someone peering at me as I work and I don't imagine anyone else does either.
Yeah, I never stand around watching, I'll go and have a cup of tea at the local cafe and then reappear just as he's finishing. It's all in the timing
I stayed with my bus last mot and was trying to fix faults as the tester found them as he wanted to pass it The same garage i stay with my car whilst its been motd and the tester points out why hes failing bits and the safety reasons why When my car goes to them for things to be fixed im not tooled up for i end up working with the mechanic to fix it They charge full whack for an mot and labour is £50 and hour regardless if i help or not Its a little country village old school garage and id rather pay over the top to them for an honest service than i would go to quickfit for one of there £25 special offer mots The garage i use dont charge you for the mot when they issue the failure sheet the charge you when they pass it on the re test Anything old school and the owner shoves the younger tester out of the way and wants to do it himself
Oh i forgot to mention the garage owner and head mot honcho loved all the painted bits on my bus Hes going to keel over when pauls finished with it and ive bolted everything back on
I always look forward to my MOTs, as the test folk know old VWs inside out. They're always full of praise, as it "doesn't look like a f***ing patchwork quilt" underneath. They've seen far far worse. Amusing to see the youngster trying to tweak the idle mixture up, head stuck in the engine compartment looking confused. I think he was looking for somewhere to plug his laptop in...
