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May 23, 2020 16:33:36 GMT
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All will be listed but don’t mean they haven’t been fixed But, with the best will in the world, that does indicate that the owner doesn't care too much about maintenance of the car... I'd much rather have a car from an owner who notices when tyres are going bald and replaces them before the MOT, or notices when bulbs are out and replaces them, as it also means they're likely to have noticed when the oil level was getting low, or when it started making that odd rattling noise, and dealt with it when it happened... Good luck with that then, that narrows your buying choices to about 3% of car owners.
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lrman
Part of things
Posts: 41
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May 23, 2020 17:46:15 GMT
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MoT history check is always my first port of call, just gives a flavour for how the vehicle has been looked after...lots of silly faults that could/should be checked before taking in,or lots,of previous corrosion puts me off(seen dodgy repairs too often so default assumption is they will be). Unless its a rare/unusual car, step away. Yes but that could mean lots of things, for example, say my daughter drives her car for a year, during that year it may/will develop faults. I can absolutely guarantee she ain’t fixing them. She takes it for test, tester lists faults & then she says ok fix it & mot it. All will be listed but don’t mean they haven’t been fixed If everything that the car was failed and advised on has been fixed for the retest then the pass certificate shouldn’t have any advisories on it as these should be removed with the failure items. Or maybe that’s just me who checks everything I listed.
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vanpeebles
Part of things
I am eastbound in pursuit of a white Lamborghini, this is not a recording.
Posts: 978
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May 23, 2020 21:35:26 GMT
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It sounds exactly like what you would expect to see on a near 15 year old Fiat with a 140k on the clock
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May 23, 2020 22:21:18 GMT
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Although it’s always best to check the mot history It does grate me when an mot tester puts severe corrosion on an mot A good few years ago I owned a mint low mileage Sierra The tester failed it on what he called severe corrosion within a structural mount area of the car I remember getting home and wiring brushing it off to find absolutely no holes or bad corrosion, but it ended up in its mot history Needless to say I never used that particular garage again A while ago I had the opposite, sort of. Took a punt on my mk1 MX5 with corrosion listed on the failed MOT and bought it cheap because of this. Got it to my own classic car-friendly MOT guy a week later and the examiner complained that MX5's had no issues having rust in that area (rear subframe, was more crusty than seriously rusty) and promptly passed it with no advisories. Got 2 years motoring before it got bad enough to have to deal with, and even now they're absolutely rock solid (by which time sills have started to go - currently sorting them now!)
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Last Edit: May 23, 2020 22:26:13 GMT by arsonist
1979 Mk1 Passat Estate 1.6 LS 1996 Mk3.5 Fiesta 1.3 Classic 1997 Mk1 MX5 1.8i 2005 Mazda 3 TS
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60six
Posted a lot
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Posts: 1,657
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God I hate it when I do that - Totally forgot about the lockdown. If I had kept this to myself it would of been a great pilot for a netflix series about a Bloke who keeps buying cars -- I honestly think that car could of been in the centre of Bazra and I would of still tried to book flights!
I once bought a car completely without realising it was in some deep part of the countryside north of Leeds - Golf Mk2 with single wiper, teardrops & jetta front end. Took over 7 hours on the train there and about 18 hours to get it home - huge crash on teh M25 was the part where I think I had been up for 18 hours! Door handles held on with god damn chewing gum and interior patched up with cheap sellotape! - Took over 100 quid of fuel too. Still, it was a serious automotive adventure though ...
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Some 9000's, a 900, an RX8 & a beetle
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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May 24, 2020 10:48:28 GMT
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I once bought a car completely without realising it was in some deep part of the countryside north of Leeds - Golf Mk2 with single wiper, teardrops & jetta front end. Took over 7 hours on the train there and about 18 hours to get it home - huge crash on teh M25 was the part where I think I had been up for 18 hours! Door handles held on with god damn chewing gum and interior patched up with cheap sellotape! - Took over 100 quid of fuel too. Still, it was a serious automotive adventure though ... There's gotta be a thread in there. I once bought a car (Alfa 33 SW) on eBay for £165, and then realised it was in Edinburgh. The train ticket from London cost me more than the car! It was quite the introduction to LHD in the UK - driving the 400 miles back home again!
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,191
Club RR Member Number: 170
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May 24, 2020 11:32:33 GMT
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The MOT history is a good guide but I don't treat it as gospel. Some garages will 'find' problems. I.e if a bush has a tiny amount of play, but is acceptable and probably will be fine for years, they'll fail it, put on the cheapest arms they can and then surprise surprise, it becomes an MOT failure for every year after that. Alfa 147 arms are a popular one. Pattern ones don't make it past the year before they have excessive play. The factory ones may go a little soft but they will stay like that for a long time. I've once had a car go into two MOT places ; my mate owned it. Both had a very different set of failures. All will be listed but don’t mean they haven’t been fixed But, with the best will in the world, that does indicate that the owner doesn't care too much about maintenance of the car... I'd much rather have a car from an owner who notices when tyres are going bald and replaces them before the MOT, or notices when bulbs are out and replaces them, as it also means they're likely to have noticed when the oil level was getting low, or when it started making that odd rattling noise, and dealt with it when it happened... I hear you, but as said, that will be a very few no. of owners. I do run tyres close for the MOT, but I do also change them on time ; a can of worms but tyres for my M3 are close to £1k ; ouch! That's the same story now on Citroen DSs (if not more), and other retros where previously common sizes are now rare. Suspension etc. I'll change if it's bad and noticeably so. Same with the engine. If I bought a car cheap and took it in for an MOT, I wouldn't bother changing the tyres, and haven't done in the past ; Why commit that expense if the car turns out to be more of a turd than you were let on during an MOT? If there is anything to watch for IMHO, it's 'ringing' of a car ; thus always check the V5 against the reg. Sounds innocent, but here's one example. Years ago, a mate of mine bought an E30 325i Sport for £600 ; good ones then were £2k on a good day. He went to the dealer to get some parts (he was doing a supercharger conversion). In short -Dealer found his plate was off a 320i SE Touring ; almost correct ; it was previously on it ; his '325i' -Dealer checked the VIN plate and noticed it was 'tampered' -Dealer then does HPI and says to owner he can't say anything, but he strongly suggests he does an HPI -Friend the does HPIs ; Plate on the car is fine ; That 'car' had 3 plates on it in the past, hence the confusion there ; originally, it left the dealer on a private plate; this car was also a CAT-D, nothing really wrong there. The actual chassis itself? Scrapped 8 years ago ; he was driving a shell which technically should never have been on the road. That's fine until he had a serious accident ; probably not hard to do in London; you can guarantee with an obviously disturbed VIN on the car, the authorities would have torn him a new one, despite him not checking. He bought the car in good faith off a garage because a customer couldn't pay the bill. In the end, the shell ended up getting scrapped ,for good this time however, but it cost my mate alot of time, and him removing parts which he bought to make his 'dream' E30.
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Last Edit: May 24, 2020 11:34:03 GMT by ChasR
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May 24, 2020 20:18:04 GMT
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I take cars for MOT, my own and many customer vehicles too.
I seldom go any further than checking the silly season things, lights, horn, wiper blades before presenting a car for test. Since I don't pay for retests at my VTS of choice, there's no point in doing more, the tester will tell me what needs doing, I go home, do it, take it back, get a pass, everybody happy! Good, move on to the next one!
You can't blame the tester for the choice of words, he just clicks a box for what seems nearest to what he wants to say and the computer puts IT'S choice of words down. Likewise "dangerous" fails, a corroded disc is not that likely to crack or break but the tester has no choice but to hand down the dangerous decision. And I see a lot of excessively corroded tags applied to cars that don't deserve them. The whole system relies on common sense by the tester, if your tester can't or won't excercise common sense, find one who will!
Steve
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60six
Posted a lot
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Posts: 1,657
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May 24, 2020 20:40:55 GMT
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a can of worms but tyres for my M3 are close to £1k What!? What kind of tyres are they? I know some 5 series had metric alloys and those were very pricy tyres, but an M3? An M3 is one of those cars that you can't just change the alloys over to something with more common rubber as it just wouldn't look right ....
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Some 9000's, a 900, an RX8 & a beetle
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,191
Club RR Member Number: 170
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May 24, 2020 23:08:46 GMT
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a can of worms but tyres for my M3 are close to £1k What!? What kind of tyres are they? I know some 5 series had metric alloys and those were very pricy tyres, but an M3? An M3 is one of those cars that you can't just change the alloys over to something with more common rubber as it just wouldn't look right .... You may out of touch there . Metric tyres are now over £400 a corner these days. So for a 5 Series, make that over £1.6k on tyres. Ouch! Admittedly £1k is near a dealer price for the M3. If you go for something like Goodyears or Michies, it's around £500-650 for a set of tyres if you shop around. 18s are cheaper but unless you are on good terms with a tyre fitter, most won't get the tyres you want due to the price and the lack of customers who would buy them ; most M3s on 18s (including mine) have track rubber on them .
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,191
Club RR Member Number: 170
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May 24, 2020 23:15:06 GMT
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I take cars for MOT, my own and many customer vehicles too. I seldom go any further than checking the silly season things, lights, horn, wiper blades before presenting a car for test. Since I don't pay for retests at my VTS of choice, there's no point in doing more, the tester will tell me what needs doing, I go home, do it, take it back, get a pass, everybody happy! Good, move on to the next one! You can't blame the tester for the choice of words, he just clicks a box for what seems nearest to what he wants to say and the computer puts IT'S choice of words down. Likewise "dangerous" fails, a corroded disc is not that likely to crack or break but the tester has no choice but to hand down the dangerous decision. And I see a lot of excessively corroded tags applied to cars that don't deserve them. The whole system relies on common sense by the tester, if your tester can't or won't excercise common sense, find one who will! Steve Spot on . However, I suspect many go on price. I used to and my advisories lists were as long as your arm, for all sorts of minor and silly things. Ever since I started going to more 'common-sense' based testers, I've not had that issue. Sure, they've found things wrong, but they are very fair. I used to be charged £45 by my tester until he got to know me better. It's now £35. People at work used to laugh at me for using that tester but then moan when their cars needed £200 every test to past and then they'd say ; "it's expected ; it's a cheap test" Rinse and repeat every year . You really couldn't make it up.
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I don't really check anything before a test these days. The tester will swap bulbs for a nominal sum because it's easier than curse word about having it back for a retest. Anything else, the retest is free. Tyres get replaced when they are low, so way before they fail an MoT.
The MoT history has saved me a few wasted trips and if a car in an advert has the reg covered I scratch them from the list too. Advisories for wear in this or that I tend to ignore though. I've taken cars with several advisories to my local place and found that they have all miraculously healed themselves.
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Jaguar S-Type 3.0 SE
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May 25, 2020 11:07:24 GMT
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There was a case like this in one of the mags recently, think it was a jag s type failed on all & sundry, at which point the tester tried to buy it for scrap value Strangely enough, when it went to another station, as keithyboy says, most of the faults had miraculously resolved themselves, including IIRC some welding! Wish I could get one of these ‘self-welding cars! 🤔
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May 25, 2020 11:19:52 GMT
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Failing the MOT on silly stuff like bulbs, tyres, brakes etc. is a sure sign the owner is either lazy or inept.
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May 25, 2020 11:28:37 GMT
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The ones that pee me off are the "best mate" MOTs that send them thru with no advisories but the car is an obvious fail basket case and / or trading as private.
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May 25, 2020 12:12:31 GMT
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I always check the MoT history of a potential purchase, but rather than looking for anything specific I just get a sense of the trends; if it has the same advisories year after year or several fails for the same thing (corrosion is an obvious one), I bear that mind when deciding on price.
There are far too many variables to to anything on an MoT as gospel though, as much of the test is down to opinion (again, the severity of corrosion is a prime example) and there is always the problem of the "my mate" MoT as sausage says.
My own S-Type is nice and clean underneath, but my MoT guy has taken to putting "corrosion to inner and outer sills, sill covers fitted" as an advisory, which seems illogical to me...how can he see corrosion if there are sill covers fitted??
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OGDB
Part of things
Posts: 544
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May 25, 2020 12:13:46 GMT
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How annoying, that thing looks awesome!
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May 25, 2020 13:03:25 GMT
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Failing the MOT on silly stuff like bulbs, tyres, brakes etc. is a sure sign the owner is either lazy or inept. I've taken a few cars that had working bulbs but dubious everything else and it's failed on bulbs but flee through on everything else lol
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May 25, 2020 13:05:17 GMT
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Hmm, if you can weld (and have the time) then I don't think that's a bad price.
Discs/pads: £50 Cheapie coilover kit: £160 Gasket: £5? Tyres: £100 Drop links: £20 Welding/sundires: £50 MoT: £40
Total: £425
So you've got yourself an MoT'd Panda Abarth for about £1,100. Happy days!
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May 25, 2020 13:21:03 GMT
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daklone I’ve had similar things, I think it’s more to do with a spot check by VOSA, DVDA or whatever they’re called this week, when they decide that it’s got an invalid MOT due to corrosion the tester can say’well I couldn’t see because of the sill covers, I did advise on it’ to cover their rse!
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