Your answers Gentlemen, please. This is indicating a serious problem in the Industry. Trust is now zero. I am disgusted with the behavior of these alleged "inspectors" who are dim, dumb, deaf and blind, and cannot read the BBB. It is not good enough is it?
I am waiting to see how they cope with electric 4WD cars. Whilst electric cars still have mechanical brakes, these are only part of the braking system, the electrodynamic regenerative brakes are unlikely to work at low speed even on a 4WD roller set. Either the car will need loads of special software to be tested, or the results will not be real scenario data. All those old Crypton brake testers will need to be replaced too, another nightmare on the way.
In Northern Ireland, all the MOTs are done by the Government (an agency) using largely automatic testing with a few bits of inspection. This takes a bit less than 20 minutes altogether and costs less than in England. The quality of the test is probably good, and obviously no repair fraud. There was a "software" problem at one stage, which is slightly interesting, a certain kind of lorry (which I owned) had incorrect data for the brake tester (much more sophisticated than the English one), which thought my truck had disk brakes on the back, which it didn't. It failed twice for dynamic brake balance, so I took it to the main dealer. Using the same manufacturer's tester it passed with flying colours (Maha, make, the same as the MOT station!). I took it again, fail. The dealer then changed everything, very expensive, so that it was essentially a completely new brake system. His test, new, MOT fail. As you can imagine there was a fair bit of communication behind the scenes, and the dealer took it to another MOT station 40 miles distant. Pass as perfect as it could be. I complained of course, for £2K of work which was completely unnecessary, and paying for 5 tests. They really couldn't have cared, said it was due to a "software error", and refunded 4 test fees. Never ever trust the Government and software, they don't know what it is!
We automate some of the EICR, the meter tests, the rest is inspection. Which do I find most in error when some are checked out, the meter tests!
I am waiting to see how they cope with electric 4WD cars. Whilst electric cars still have mechanical brakes, these are only part of the braking system, the electrodynamic regenerative brakes are unlikely to work at low speed even on a 4WD roller set. Either the car will need loads of special software to be tested, or the results will not be real scenario data. All those old Crypton brake testers will need to be replaced too, another nightmare on the way.
In Northern Ireland, all the MOTs are done by the Government (an agency) using largely automatic testing with a few bits of inspection. This takes a bit less than 20 minutes altogether and costs less than in England. The quality of the test is probably good, and obviously no repair fraud. There was a "software" problem at one stage, which is slightly interesting, a certain kind of lorry (which I owned) had incorrect data for the brake tester (much more sophisticated than the English one), which thought my truck had disk brakes on the back, which it didn't. It failed twice for dynamic brake balance, so I took it to the main dealer. Using the same manufacturer's tester it passed with flying colours (Maha, make, the same as the MOT station!). I took it again, fail. The dealer then changed everything, very expensive, so that it was essentially a completely new brake system. His test, new, MOT fail. As you can imagine there was a fair bit of communication behind the scenes, and the dealer took it to another MOT station 40 miles distant. Pass as perfect as it could be. I complained of course, for £2K of work which was completely unnecessary, and paying for 5 tests. They really couldn't have cared, said it was due to a "software error", and refunded 4 test fees. Never ever trust the Government and software, they don't know what it is!
We automate some of the EICR, the meter tests, the rest is inspection. Which do I find most in error when some are checked out, the meter tests!
