My Ls Failed The Mot

whysub · January 1, 2010

On Wednesday I took my LS to a Lexus dealer-they have a good reputation-for an MOT (runs out 2nd Jan) rather than a local independant, as this would be the first MOT under my ownership and I wanted to ensure all is well. It was, apart from two things.

The rear parking brake was inoperative on the near side rear. I knew as much, as the pedal went down a long way, but as I use "P" when i stop, it was not an immediate issue.

The dealer then said that they were having trouble removing the rear disc. Funnily enough, when I purchased the car there were a new set of OE Lexus brake shoes in the boot, so I'm guessing that the previous owner had the same problem. The garage warned me that if they tried to remove the disc, they may damage it. As the car had been issued with a failure certificate I wasn't happy driving it home (have you noticed that at the moment every other car on the road seems to be a police car?), so gave them the go ahead (it needs fixing anyway)

20 minutes later, the disc was off, but had been damaged. they showed me the damage, for which they were very apologetic, and that the problem had been seized parking brake cables. And it really was rusted solid. Unfortunately they didn't have a disc or cable in stock, and won't get one until the 5th.

My car has 225,000 on it, so hardly suprising that something has seized over 15 years, but not seen anything anywhere about seized cables.

The second failure point was the number plates-for some reason the last owner had plates made up with 1 extra space in it when he bought the car and the owner before him took his personal plate off of it. It passed the last MOT with this plate on-it was made up at the MOT station too!!!

Still, apart from petrol, the car has cost me nothing in the six months of ownership. Compare to my last car-a Jag- which was a complete money pit in the 6 weeks or so I owned it.

Jefflex · January 1, 2010

Hi. So whats the question then?

Jeff

On Wednesday I took my LS to a Lexus dealer-they have a good reputation-for an MOT (runs out 2nd Jan) rather than a local independant, as this would be the first MOT under my ownership and I wanted to ensure all is well. It was, apart from two things.
The rear parking brake was inoperative on the near side rear. I knew as much, as the pedal went down a long way, but as I use "P" when i stop, it was not an immediate issue.

The dealer then said that they were having trouble removing the rear disc. Funnily enough, when I purchased the car there were a new set of OE Lexus brake shoes in the boot, so I'm guessing that the previous owner had the same problem. The garage warned me that if they tried to remove the disc, they may damage it. As the car had been issued with a failure certificate I wasn't happy driving it home (have you noticed that at the moment every other car on the road seems to be a police car?), so gave them the go ahead (it needs fixing anyway)

20 minutes later, the disc was off, but had been damaged. they showed me the damage, for which they were very apologetic, and that the problem had been seized parking brake cables. And it really was rusted solid. Unfortunately they didn't have a disc or cable in stock, and won't get one until the 5th.

My car has 225,000 on it, so hardly suprising that something has seized over 15 years, but not seen anything anywhere about seized cables.

The second failure point was the number plates-for some reason the last owner had plates made up with 1 extra space in it when he bought the car and the owner before him took his personal plate off of it. It passed the last MOT with this plate on-it was made up at the MOT station too!!!

Still, apart from petrol, the car has cost me nothing in the six months of ownership. Compare to my last car-a Jag- which was a complete money pit in the 6 weeks or so I owned it.