As sometimes the places which did the prior MOT(s) were apparently supposed to have been inundated with callers hassling them for their opinion on a particular car which eventually found itself on the used car market and someone was considering buying it! As if an MOT place in, say Colchester could remember and advise on a car they MOTed in the past and is now located in kent lol
You wonder what’s wrong with people sometimes.
Regardless of how well built cars are, there are less and less people these days who are car enthusiasts and who understand the principles of preventative maintenance. For many, cars are just an appliance and they want to spend as little as possible (in both time and money) maintaining them.
I’ve lost track of the number of cars (“interesting” cars as well as shopping trolleys) whose MoT histories show that their tyres or brakes were in a dangerous state, and were only replaced because they were failed at MoT time. And if the problems were flagged as Advisories, then they usually re-appear the following year(s) until such time as they become Failures. It’s obvious that there are many, many people out there whose idea of car maintenance is just to do whatever the minimum is to pass the MoT test.
VOSA will also have a lot of data about vehicle failure modes, so if any particular Testing Station is out of kilter on the number of Failures or Advisories that they issue (and that can be broken down by marque, model, year, etc) then there will be an investigation. That’s even more true of those items where there’s a subjective decision by the tester (is that a “misting” or a “weep” or a “leak” of oil?) than when there are clear cut criteria in place (is there 1.6mm tread across the centre 75% of the tyre?)
We have used the same garage for both out 5’s over 15 years.
Suffice to say, they have provided a Cash Cow to them over these years.
Fair labour, decent engineering, cannot recall having to take a car back.
However, 3 of 4 years back nit-picking kicked off.
“Excessive rust on brakepipes.” No.
“Oil leak at engine transmission”.
No it was not…I’d allowed a dribble when topping up.
And so on…until one day the MOT Fail text came through.
ARB gaiters split. I’d told them there was a new set in the boot. There was a note on the dash.
That kinda did it. They were all having their lunch at the one time…so they were warned OK…I went ballistic… if they ever told porkies about either of our cars, I’d go elsewhere…since there is a decent elsewhere to go to actually.
Last MOT for the Sport…lot of work done BEFORE to my specification.
It was “tested” so you’ll only see a small mention of this and that now.
They have learned.
Nice one… I like it! Just what I would have done too.
Well Mike,
When some people like me retire, hand the tiller over to the next generation, and sit comfortably pensioned at last, and in a position to make certain types of life choices hitherto unthinkable you tend to reflect in life’s rear view mirror. That’s when some folk get a wake up call brake test.
One big one for me was " No more swallowing of B.S…get them dealt with"
It’s been fun now and then. 
Usual MOT run around. Yet again, another year, another “cat failure”. Its so frequent, the cat is like a service replacement.
Engine (1.8) has ~100k on it. Last few years, I only put a few 1000 miles on it, and oil filter changed annually.
Mass air sensor fitted, together with dry air filter
New Denso O2 sensor, properly wired in
Exhaust visually inspected for cracks
New plugs, Magnacore wires
No visible leakage at injectors. The engine was a replacement many years ago, but the injectors and rail came from the original engine, so I guess these have done 270k kms now
Next conversations will be compression tests, top end rebuild. But the engine feels really strong. The only thing I’ve noticed it that it chugs a bit when starting from cold, but the battery is newish. The coil pack was replaced a while back with a new Mazda item.
When hot, the idle dips a little at traffic lights when in gear, which I’ve put down to a sticky LA01 clutch switch. Could it be this?
I presume they are testing your vehicle under the correct import requirements.
I’ve a suspicion it’s the sort of thing ypu’d ask.
Did you bother to rag it stupid off the limiter for a gallon or so the night before?
Not a scientific Pass G’tee, I’m not claiming it is, but in 16 years I’ve not ever had a gas fail on my Mk1.
It does around 5k per annum hard revvy miles, and in goes a bottle of Forte fuel conditioner pre MOT…Bob’s yer Uncle. Seems to be a fairly common Old Wive’s pre MOT fix.
Without a CAT.
Actually, we think we cracked it. And in a simple-why-didn’t-we-think of that before way. Stuck a timing light on it. Its running at 20 degrees BTDC. Engine never knocked. Lots of head scratching. But turns out, not that uncommon to run at 18-20 BTDC, and not really notice.
My car is a 1996 car. The testing requirements you refer to don’t apply to 1996 and newer cars in Great Britain. Import or not, its a cat test. We always rag the engine before testing. And I put in so much fuel injector cleaners tc. And for the last few years, its been running pretty much Super Unleaded all the time, mainly because the car see little use.
Result then.
Hopefully, still waiting on a cat to be delivered (late) and the MOT station has gone down with 'Rona.