Bit of a shock

[Range Rover Blues]

I took the RR into a garage where my mate works so he could test the shocks on their jazzy computerised shaker bed, it's handling like s**t but I think it may be a loose swivel.  Anyway it's a great peice of kit and as they are now a computerised MOT station it looks like the shape of things to come, no more bouncing on the wings and breaking wrists for the poor MOT man doing MY car.

Anyway, this thing can also tell you what the car weighs.  1024kg on the front axle and 1346kg on the rear :shock: ****ing hell!  my car's put on 400kg somewhere, is the chassis full of mud?

BTW he tells me they have had a memorandum from the MOT not to test 4x4 vehicles with mechanical traction aids on the rolling road anymore.  Apparently a Scooby can climb off the rollers and run down the tester in the process.

[Xtremeteam]

I took the RR into a garage where my mate works so he could test the shocks on their jazzy computerised shaker bed, it's handling like s**t but I think it may be a loose swivel.  Anyway it's a great peice of kit and as they are now a computerised MOT station it looks like the shape of things to come, no more bouncing on the wings and breaking wrists for the poor MOT man doing MY car.

Anyway, this thing can also tell you what the car weighs.  1024kg on the front axle and 1346kg on the rear :shock: ****ing hell!  my car's put on 400kg somewhere, is the chassis full of mud?

BTW he tells me they have had a memorandum from the MOT not to test 4x4 vehicles with mechanical traction aids on the rolling road anymore.  Apparently a Scooby can climb off the rollers and run down the tester in the process.

yep lol,had to convince the MOT tester where i used to work that you could do a landy on the rollers by putting the Tbox in neutral,although for scoobys etc is soooo funny when it jumps out,council employed mate of mine who is a mechanic was servicing a FWD tranny & they have to do a brake test at each service so he poped it into the rollers & went through his interior test then jumped out & walked round the van checking & went n got the control for the rollers,switched it on & forgot the van was in reverse with the ignition on & bump started it n it took off across the workshop  :(biglaugh):  :(biglaugh):

in regards to the weight thing,its all the rust inside the chassis as my soft top 90 racer weighs in at about 1900 kg when in race spec  

[Miniman]

I wonder how much my rusty landy would weigh in at as it's chassi is rusty inside. Rust is heavyer than metal....lol

[hobbit]

What does your man say about re-tests, seems the little helper of a free retest may be snookered with the new system

[Xtremeteam]

local guy to me is currently still doing free retests mainly to keep original punters,
the garage my work uses they can be abit funny about it,if you can get it back the same day not a prob,but after that he becomes a bit of a hit n miss

[TimM]

I used to use an independant MOT station, they ONLY did MOTs and wouldn't fail your car on something just so they could fix it...... because they couldn;'t fix it.

They were always really helpful, if you had a bulb out, they would fit another one for free to avoid the hassle of a free re-test (as it cost them more in labour). BUT..... they are planning to charge for re-tests shortly, so I'm going to start taking mine to my friendly local garage whos attitude is that if it fails or would fail) and they repair it for you, they will pass the car anyway.

[Arightpest]

tim is it alans test centre on southwell rd.

[TimM]

tim is it alans test centre on southwell rd.

Thats the one!  :shock:

[hobbit]

Under the new test rules with the automated system the testing station gets charged each time they log into the system for a test, so re-tests by the look of will incur a charge too, it depends on the jobs done, I will clarify  with them I drop in today, but by the sounds of it can be fixed on site, ie, bulb or adjusting headlight alignment, it is ok, if it goes away for repair, its a full retest. Not sure if they do the repair on site though.

They are having it fitted in the next couple of weeks

[TimM]

.......... if it goes away for repair, its a full retest. .......

Thats what I've heard aswell (i've got a few garages as clients and they do MOTs), they have said that the test 'slot' gets booked in advance and so they effectively now do the MOT test BEFORE registering it on the computer, so if it fails they can fix it and then put it through the computer.

But if your taking it away, it has to go through on that day, and requires a new 'slot' when you bring it back - hence a new fee (they have to buy the 'slots').

 

[rokcrawlin]

It would probrably pay you all to look at a pre test before the full mot as this is a cheaper option to do, I do this so that i can repair the vehicle myself if there is something i have missed............it also means the vehicle is not on a register of badly maintained vehicles due to a minor fault ..........the ANPR system will allow for the chance of your vehicle being stopped if it is classed as a badly maintained vehicle especially with the cross agency data base that will be availiable once every garage/insurance company and the dvla is linked to the Police data base

[jalopy joe]

So the only thing Mr. Orwell got wrong about Big Brother was the date then :!:  :!:  :!:

[Henry Webster]

Anyway, this thing can also tell you what the car weighs.  1024kg on the front axle and 1346kg on the rear :shock: ****ing hell!  my car's put on 400kg somewhere, is the chassis full of mud?

I put the racer on the weighbridge when I got back from the Hillrally.  We didn't get a chance to wash it before we left so it was as it left the final stage.  

It came out at 1945kgs which is about 100kgs more than last time I weighed it.  At the very least 80kgs of that has to be mud.  Washed half of it last week and took 40kgs of mud off the drive and tht was just what I could get off.

We are going to look at modifying the mud traps before the next one!

H

[hobbit]

Yes I mentioned this to them, and the fact is that it would be beneficial for people to pay for a pre mot inspection, especially if the motor is doubtful to pass, or the owner is not sure.

So looks like the local friendly garage thing is going further down the tubes, this is going to be fun, but not for the garage or the customer, just VOSA

[Range Rover Blues]

Rich was telling me in some detail about the test, he's sort of in-charge of it there and it appears that what some of you have said is right, although if a slot is available it's yours, no pre-booking.  Which is funny because the test-on-demend stations have to pre-book now.  Apparently his gargage buys credits from the MOT or something and they can do that many test before buying some more.

On the subject of retests he said something about 'anything involving a measurement'. They can do retests but the car he was doing for me had been over a month, that would have been taking the p***.

The worst part for him is that he now has to put a card into the machine, book the car into the system to start the test, then log out.  Until he has finished that car he can't do another, not even a retest.  So he has to do the test itself then log back into the sytem and enter the test details, pass or fail.  They know how long the tester spent on the car so there is now a minimum time to allocate to the test ie no 'quickies' and even if the test is cancelled, the sytem knows!  It also has a frightening amount of detail about the car itself, which it may ask the tester to verify, such as colour, engine, trim etc.

What worse, there is now a database that knows what you car failed on, so if yo are refused a ticket for say faulty dampers, the scuffers know when they pull you up that your car was denied an MOT becuause it's unroadworthy! (this was always an offence but very hard for them to prove if your old MOT was still valid).

Big brother, big b****y Tony more like, cheezy grin-faced t***.

[drmike]

I think the greatest worry is when they start hooking up the measuring devices to the MOT computer so that the tester can't apply any discretion to the process.

There must be loads of times a tester has made a judgement based on common sense about older vehicles that are borderline fails but only go out for shows or competition and are clearly not dangerous.

Borderline smoky diesels will now either fail or pass.

It's hard to argue that the reason for the fail shouldn't be known but this sort of big brother stuff will take a lot of classic cars off the road for no good purpose.

It will also probably make the test far more expensive and put a load of smaller MOT testers out of business. This won't bother politicians and senior civil servants as they don't live in the same world as the rest of us.

I know it's only change and that I'm getting older but the stealing away of discretion from all and sundry is very depressing.

Mike