Hello
Can anybody tell me if MOT testing standards have changed in the last 12 months ?.
Reason for asking, took my 2008 NC3 2.0 option pack PRHT for MOT at my local garage beginning of last November, passed no problem, after that it was put into dry storage until beginning of May this year, just took it to the same MOT testing station this morning and basically they have put advisories saying the whole of the underside of the car is corroded but not seriously weakened, now bearing in mind the car was undersealed with Dynax in May and has only covered 1200 miles since May, all in dry weather and has been garaged when not in use you can imagine i was a little bit bemused, the car has covered less than 55k in it’s lifetime, i asked the tester if he’d got the right car, to which he said yes, the reason he’d given the advisories is that some of the underseal had peeled off here and there and was showing minor surface rust so they have to call it corrosion, is this the new rule ? Due to this MOT report anybody reading it will think the car is a pile of scrap which it definitely isn’t, is this guy being a bit over zealous regarding the corrosion.
Thanks
When I was looking I spoke to a dealer that sells nothing but mx5’s. He explained that it was important to have an mot tester that knows the cars, as the wrong tester can make them sound like a rot box for surface corrosion that is common and present across almost all of them.
Now whether or not the word of a dealer when it comes to something like this has any weight I don’t know, but I don’t disagree with what he was saying. It’s no skin off a testers nose to note it down as an advisory (but pass it) to cover their own backside, so most probably wouldn’t think twice about doing it, even if it doesn’t look good on your cars history.
Hi Dean
Thanks for the reply, the dealer may have a point, the annoying part is that the car is solid and the underneath is in better nick this year than it was last year when the same guy tested it, I’ve been under it myself again this afternoon and I’m baffled, there’s a jap specialist around 10 miles from where i live it’ll be going there next year, I’ve laid it up now unit may next year, I’ll wire brush any bits of surface rust off and top the underseal up, hopefully that’ll clear it’s name, i would think 99.9% of the cars that go for mot have some kind of rust underneath, wonder if they all get a bad rap sheet,
Thanks again
Regards
A very p****d off Darren
And sometimes I’ve seen they’ve put, underbody covered in underseal as an advisory. That could mean, it’s covering rust and they can’t inspect it properly.
Can’t win…
Yes that does sound frustrating. I’ve used the same mot guy for 20 years, he’s a ford nut who races classics and is a proper enthusiast. He rarely picks anything up as he knows I’m a bit fussy but I accept if he did he’d have to note it down. He has offered me a free retest in the past to avoid having advisories if I want to make repairs quickly, I once did for discs and pads and a broken spring and it sailed back through.
If you’re concerned about anything showing up on mot then it’s probably worth going over the car in advance and getting it ‘mot ready’ before submitting it, or finding a more reasonable understanding tester (that would still fail anything worthy of a failure of course).
6.5 years ago my wife’s windscreen picked up a chip on the lower center of the screen (my fault apparently, I was driving!) out of the swept area, 5.5 years later it got its first advisory on the MOT, This year not a mention!
If it was undersealed in May, I’d be a bit concerned if the MoT tester had noticed some of the underseal peeling off already?
But overall it’s the unfortunate aspect of a visual inspection. Often if they observe an area of slight concern (advisory) they may well end up noting corrosion to the underside, as a worst case scenario.
Have you got some photos of the areas of concern?
This year i had a pre MOT done. Just in case of any advisory’s . She was fine no faults for a 17 year old mx.
If you peel off all your underseal I can garanntee a lot of it will be rusty. MOT testers cover themselves by saying corrosion.
A 2008 car is well in the rusty agezone now. So I would be seriously thinking of taking off all underseal and soring out any issues.
PS NDs are showing underside rust now. Its what MX5s do best 
I get on very well with my local car and bike mot testers.
We often have a good chat about the state some people present their car/bike for an MOT.
Both have commented that they are being pushed by VOSA to hand out lots more advisories.
An advisory also covers them in the cases of “I’m not sure but want to protect myself”
Some years ago I had an underseal job done and 1 year later the stuff was peeling off and an alarming amount of rust was showing below, I should have ensured it was going to be a thorough back to metal rust protection job, instead of a slap it all over underseal job,I didn’t. Needless to say I got it done properly elsewhere.
Same comments from the guy I use for all the family’s cars; he hates doing it, and always apologises when he adds a meaningless (in reality) advisory regarding corrosion… it doesn’t mean imminent failure in the way ‘those of a certain age’ understand it to mean historically. BUT, it does make us sit up and do something to avoid the same advisory next time around 
Hi all, thanks for your feedback and comments, I’ll keep this as brief as possible, i bought the car in 2020 with fsh and all mot certificates, no mention at all of any corrosion anywhere ever, in my ownership I’ve change all springs, discs, pads, shocks, tyres, wheels, diff oil, gearbox oil, engine oil oil, filter air filter, I’ve done diy underseal twice including inside sills and all cavities once with dinitrol and once with dynax, this included removing wheel arch liners to do wheel arches and wheel arch lips, granted not as good as professionals but i didn’t just spray on and hop for the best, i spent the best part of a week both times, so a lot of time and effort regardless of expens put in, so when i take the car for test and i get 5.3.3 b i both subframes corroded but not seriously weakened, rear suspension arms corroded hut not seriously weakened, ALL UNDERSIDE corroded when basically all rust that’s showing is probably from stones I’ve flicked up when driving showing the odd bit of surface rust the size of a garden pea and the tester practically deems the car a rot box you can understand my sentiment, I’ve no intention of selling the car as it’s my pride and joy but boy does it ■■■■ me off when there’s no consistency in testing, wonder if 3 year old electric cars will get the same bad rep when they have their first mot’s…hmm i wonder🤔.
I quite understand the desire to have clean sheet MOT’s even though I am looking through the other end of a telescope having bought a rot box and now find my self hoping to make it last to the end of my driving days in the next 10 - 15 years.
However with the whole MOT system now being on line I think we will see MOT testing generally getting more fastidious as the testers are put under more pressure to make more observations to give owners a better picture of what is going on with their vehicles.
How often have I seen posts on the intelweb in general from vehicle owners having a clean MOT one year and holes in the floor and or rotted out suspension points the next ?
I doubt there will ever be a consistent test but I don’t doubt that ever smaller details will get picked up resulting in fewer and fewer clean sheet passes.
There is a car not far from me which had foglights in the lower front bumper. For at least the last two years one of these lamps has been missing, looks like the bumper had collided with something , with the badly cracked bumper around the resulting hole being held together by duct tape. This car appears to successfully pass MOT each year since, how?
SFAIK front fog lights are not mandatory and therefore not on the MOT check list .
Not quite correct.
The relevant part for front Fog Lights.
4.5.1. Presence, condition and operation
You only need to inspect:
- front fog lamps fitted to vehicles first used on or after 1 March 2018
Also why we can fit LED bulbs in the fog lights and using them as DRL’s.
Hmm. I got my first corrosion advisory this year.