fil4362

Strictly speacking its illegal as the spacing is incorrect,its also an mot fail. AS the plate is still very "readable" i doubt anyone would bother you but a picky copper could ticket you for it.

Part worn tyres??? As an mot tester/mechanic i see lots of tyres every day i fail quite a few as well. i have seen many a car that has one winter/snow tyre. When asking the customer why they have just one they usually reply they didnt know it was, and they had that one replaced recently and was it a problem. From what i can see most part worn tyre places are selling winter/snow tyres as part worns. They ship them in from overseas at the end of winter , so if you want winter/snow tyres try your local part worn place and have a chat see if they have any your size then check to see if they have any winter/snow tyres they didnt realise where not a standard tyre. I know from experiance at least one part worn place in my area is fitting them,even in summer, without telling the customer. Most of my customers when buying tyres just want a round black rubber tyre and the only consideration as to choice is the cost.

Just to clear up a few points, as an mot tester i constantly have to remind myself i test under the testers manuel rules not the law. Theres stuff thats against the law that still passes and mot test. E.G coloured side lights. As lomg as your car has one side light on each side of the car thats white (or yellow if showing through a yellow headlight) then it passes an mot. You can have as many other coloured lights as you like on your car and it passes. THe police will want to talk to you about it but as far as the mot goes its ok. Anyway, theres number plates and number plates. A sign maker can make you a number plate that look exactly like a plate when infact its a sign. I have just personally bought a pair of plates from an online "number plate seller" that i know right here and now are illegal. There was no mention of it being a "show plate" no mention if its legal or non legal. Both plates front and rear are white. The A in the plate has and umlount above it ( if thats what its called the 2 little dots over the letter, been a long time since i did german at school). Any way i know they are illegal and wont pass the mot test. But i still bought them from a reputable seller who is ment to be registered with dvla as a autherised plate seller with no mention of being legal or not. The mot test is alot down to testers discretion and if the tester is actually current with mot rules. Last year i started a thread on here asking 10 mot related questions one person got all ten right and he was a truck driver. Theres an mot tester on here got quite a few wrong. The mot rules on mot testing change all the time, number plates had a lot of changes brought in then within weeks they took the rules out again. One tester my look at your plate and think oooo thats a big gap fail. Another tester may look and think thats a big gap but i still know what its ment to be bit harsh failing it and give you a pass. A another tester may not even notice it in the first place. If you have had the plate on your car for a long time and the police havnt bothered you yet i would just carry on using it. Technically its an mot fail the tester got it right, i personally wouldnt have failed it as i see it as petty.

Came back to my car 2 weeks ago after a sunday league football match. Noticed 2 inch long vertical cracks on the nearside of my front screen and a muddy football print right by them. Dam, never mind they not really noticable as long as they dont get any worse, and as an mot tester i certain they wont fail the next test (wink wink). Anyway cold days recently, heaters on full to demist the screen, 200 yards down the road and CRACK right across the bottom of the screen. Now i might not have noticed the 2 lillte cracks for the mot test, but i just cant have my car looking like this with a full crack. Expecting the worst i started to ring round a few screen fitters. £350 + vat was the first quote. My next thought was "well they all be much the same price sod it get it done" dont kow why i rang another couple of places but glad i did quoted £185 +vat next. Finally had it done after a third call £125 all in including mew surrounding trim. well happy i hate cleaning glass and certainly the bottom of the screens so one less to do for a while lol

done 35 miles in the snow over the last 2 days not a slip or slide anywhere abs kicked in a couple of times but nothing too exciting

can you sit down yet ??? thats a slapped arse price, but if your in a hurry then thats the extra you pay. Halfords nail everyone on everything. They have a big name that everyone trust and nail everyone. I have customers all the time buying bulbs from there and being charged to have them fitted. My dearest headlight bulb i stock is £3.50 and fitted free. I have had people comign to me with broken bulb retaining clips after they tried to fit their own bulb because halfrauds wanted to charge them upwards of £7.50 for fitting. I had to go there recently for a bike tyre for me lads bike i could have got one for my car cheaper!!!

Tinted front side windows isnt illegal never has been.I have mine tinted and have had for 2 and half years never been stopped for it. Just tint a light shade thats all i can say. Mine are illegal but only a couple of shades. The back side windows are 2 shades darker than the front but it doesnt look like it. I have a black is so it looks very smart. dont have the rear screen done it makes your car feel like a cave when your in the back. I have a twin exit back box custom mad ein chrome and stainless steel. theres a tail pipe on both sides of the car (gs300 style) it wasnt cheap but than as its stainless and good quality chrome i wont ven need to change it again. It very very slightly louder and doesnt seem to have any effect on performance but it looks dam cool and i know for sure and for certain its a one off system as i designed it myself Same with any mod in my opinion, if you go too far the police will want to know what and why , if you dont stand out then they wont notice you!!.

i did this mod with resistors from maplin,cost me £3.50 and 20 minutes work. I also have the flashing 3rd brake light, this conversion cost abotu a tenner

And what about headlight washers?? as a mechanic/tester you must be know if the car has them or not there on the bumper you can see them!!. theres no doubting if your car has then or not. I am not trying to argue with you mearly pointing out the facts as they are. Headlight leveling systems you cant always check,, headlight washers you cant ignore!. The loop hole is simple its in plain sight section 1.7 information collumn states "Vehicles equipped with High Intensity Discharge (HID) or LED dipped beam headlamps may be fitted with headlamp washers and a suspension or headlamp self levelling system". The word "may" means the vehicle presnter can argue it "may" have them mine hasnt and never has. This point was shown to me at 18;30 tonight during a phone call from my local area office. I called them this morning with another problem and asked about hids while i was on. The phone call at half past six was as soon as they could get back to me, as since i had pointed out the problem, all the inspecters at my local office sat down and worked out what is right and wrong, they decifered the code as it were. Bescause is says "may" have washers and leveling device, this means it also may not have them. Its now going back to the debate table and being re written thanks to me pointing it out. They (my local office) believe the word "Modified" is goign to be written into the reason for rejection collumn some how. So as it stands hids are not mot fail but they are going to be, so if your car fails on hids as i suggested it should now you know the arguement. Section 1.7 of the manuel in the information collumn it clearly states "Vehicles equipped with High Intensity Discharge (HID) or LED dipped beam headlamps may be fitted with headlamp washers and a suspension or headlamp self levelling system." your defence is simple your didnt have them and never had you dont have to proove it. If your tester still argues tell him to contact Andrew Mann at Chaderton office. This is new to all testers and is still very much a grey area but now its going back to the drawing bored and being re worded. Wouldnt be the first time vosa have brought stuff in then changed their minds about it. Vosa doesnt decide whats legal or illegal on a car, Cateram and anyone else has nothing to worry about. My local area office sorted the problem out within a day i am sure someone at Cateram have seen what i have been told direct from vosa themselves.

The manuel doesnt say anything about certain makes and models. The new manuel went live 2 days ago and now as it stand hids with out leveling and washers is an mot fail!

The other way round the problem of course would be to put your old bulbs back in for the time of the test. The ignitor/ballasts can stay fitted as they wont be part of the test if they arent connected to anything. Then again i always get into trouble when i suggest ways of bending the rules to my advantage so maybe this is a bad idea to post this one lol.

cough cough sorry to disapoint guys but as of yesturday hids became an mot fail unless you have headlight washer and AUTOMATIC headlight leveling system. This does not mean the dial on the dash to adjust them. new mot inspection manuel out yesturday all mot testers have been notified of these changes for at least 6 months sorry guys. http://www.transportoffice.gov.uk/crt/doitonline/bl/mottestingmanualsandguides/mottestingmanualsandguides.htm i will confirm this tomorow after consulting direct with VOSA as on re reading the manuel it appears theres a loop hole. The reason for rejection states "A headlamp levelling or cleaning device inoperative or otherwise obviously defective." its doesnt say not fitted. The method of inspection talks about checking hid/led headlights its doesnt specify hid bulbs in normal headlights..... its would appear to be a fail item to me but as a tester we are always told if its not there you cant fail it unless it states missing in the reason for rejection section.

The new s class mercedes already has auto brake, works on a radar system. It wont actually let your drive close enough to the person infront for you to rear end them no matter how fast you drive or how sudden they stop. If some fool pulls out of a side street infront of you though, when your doing 30mph, doesnt matter what system you have your still crashing. I cannot think of a system or even an idea how to prevent this happening no computer will ever over come some drivers complete stupidity. Yes theres systems out now that can and will reduce crashes but its a long long way from being zero crashes. Crashing is part of driving its going to happen so many cars doing so many miles theres going to be times when 2 cars want the same space. Thats why its called an accident. Personally i think re training would be more benificial. Your driving licence should last you 3? 4? 5? years then you have to re-sit your test. Afterall your car has to be checked anually to make sure its fit to be on the road but the important bit, the driver, never has to be re checked for what could be 40 years !. The system could be run like the motor bike c r b test. Not a test as such but training, your not permitted to carry on driving until your at a certain standard. Maybe a straight forward pass or fail test could be employed that way if you cant drive safe your off the road until you prove you can. Not saying either will work but would get to the root of the problem rather than getting around it. Bottom line, poor driving causes crashes electronic devices will just reduce the problem buy getting around it, shouldnt solving the problem by illiminating bad driving be the way forward.

Tow bar sockets 13 pin and 7 pin are totally diffrent beasts. The standard 7 pin sockets get "wired" into the cars exsisting wiring loom usualy via cheap scotch lock type conecters. In a 7 pin socket you can use any pin/wire colour for any light as long as your trailer matches its ok. I have know people to wire tow bars in then swap wires around on the trialer to match the car. There is no test equipment to account for this. Therefore only a visual check can be done. I know,from experiance of fitting one, the new style 13 pin tow bar sockets are designed for the can bus controlled vehicle lighting systems and cannot be "wired in" they have to be plugged in.My breakdown van 56 plate astra has such a system. It required the designated wiring loom from vauxhall and the plug in control unit to make it all work. In short if your car has a 13 pin towbar socket,then it can only be plugged in and its easy to test with one test device. There isnt a cross over device to test both system types. Re maps on cars can only be tested with "plug in" diagnostic equipment. You cant test a re map on emmisions alone.The type of equipment required to re map or even read re map is very expensive and the governmet/department of transport/vosa dont want to force garages into buying such equipment by bringing it into the mot test. Every test station already has an emissions machine and as long as your car passes this test,as ormis car does,then your car is ok. Once again the mot test is a very basic test, as long as the emissions pass and save the planet from global warming no one is bothered how it passed. "plugging it in to read the re map" would only tell you whats been changed and what it should affect.if your car fails because of a re map thats not vosas or the testers problem so we dotn need to know. All the test is about is it ok or not ok not why.. Ormi on another note there is "part of the exhaust system missing" if you have removed the pre cats. I believe they are changing the wording slightly to include "missing cat" as technically it/they are part of the exhaust system. I could be worng but i am pretty certain this was mentioned. If the wording is left as is then it would still be debatable as to a de cat already being a fail.

Your quite correct Dave1 you have been able to do this for a long while but it seems more usefull now. Most of my customers dont read their certificate and most dont even keep them let alone know they can look it up on line.i think i issue as many duplicates as i do origianls. You can also get Text message reminders from vosa when your test is due thats written on the certificate again most people dont know this. It still suprises me how little people still know about the mot test. I have customers that think the mot test is in some way a service and their oil gets changed. I had one customer last year ring up complaining her car wouldnt start as the battery was flat she was going mad as we had tested the car 3 weeks previous and theres no way the battery had gone bad in that time. Other that security the battery isnt testable and certainly not to see if it holds charge. Most of my customers wouldnt even know what a nearside c v boot is torn or not and as the new system doesnt allow me to word the fail sheet i can only print the fail sheet then explain to the customer what it means. I reported a car the other week on service has having tyres with 2 mm tread remaining the owner actually thought 2mm was ok as he had 2 mm left. He didnt realise the legal limit was 1.6 therefore only had 0.4mm left. I have lost count the amount of times i have phone calls asking "how long after my test ran out do i get to sort it out" My wife knows nothing about mot testing as "its my job so she doesnt need to know" theres alot of other people with the same situation. Theres alot of ignorance abotu the test and paperwork which i why i posted this thread.

As i have already mentioned the tow bar wiring test is and will be compleatly pointless as it test only the vehicle electrics. IF the trailer/caravan you plug into the car has bad wiring it wont matter what comes out of the back of the car, the lights wont work properly. AS for re maps they are only talking about it at this stage as of last month ( when i attended an mot seminar on what was new coming up, the sencond one i have attanded this year) VOSA hadnt come up or even started looking for equipment cheap enough or reliable enough to actually test for a re map. Once again the mot test is only a test of the vehicle on the day, any mod IE illegal spaced number plates and hids can be removed at the time of the test and be replaced before the car even leaves my car park and theres nothing i can do about it. A station local to me marks the inside edge of tyres as he checks them to highlight the tyre size. He noticed the second black cab he tested that day already had the same markings. When the third and forth black cab from the same firm came in all marked the same way he realised the same set of wheels/tyres had been tested that day. Basicly the taxi company had one new set of tyres that they used soley for the mot test on all their cabs. For the perpouses of the test theres nothing he can do he can only test what he sees even if he has seen it 4 times a day.

As the title says a quick reminder that as of january next year the mot will be harder to pass. Vosa are bring in new "testable items". Track rod end/bottom joint/top joint dust seals will now be testable. If they are spilt they fail. If you have ever had any steering or suspension work carried out on your car and the garage use the 2 prong fork style joint splitters, chances are your car is going to fail its next mot. As late as last week "mil" lights were being introduced. A recent update to vosa data base seemed "dubious" as to exactly what warngin lights would become testable, we currently await a new list due end of november. Its almost certain airbag lights or any srs seatbelt lights will become a fail, as will any pretensioner sylte seat belts that have been triggered. Tow bars have been in the test for a while now but the electrics maybe become testable as soon as vosa can find and put together a list of "reliable" tester equipment usable by testers. Personally i find this test a tad stupid, allit test is that the electrics work on the tow bar, doesnt mean the trailer/caravan your plugging into it works! will repost any updates as and when vosa send them out to us

check your ticket With the new mot certificates being a "receipt style" ticket now, and they are being printed on normal plain paper with normal black ink, they are going to be so easy to forge. The link above will take to government website were you can check your mot history. If your going to buy a new car take down the test number of the cars current mot certificate, enter it into the website above and not only can you check if that mot is valid you can check all mot history back till 2005.(depending on when the garage used by previous owner went on the mot data base)... It actually list mot history on the car in detail. pass fail and if fail what on. you can check mileage as well on last 6 years mot test at least.

Its a little loop hole in the law but back the day the police would give you a ticket to produce your documents at the station. the ticket was called a "horte". it required you to produce a vilid mot certificate. It did not ask you to provide and mot certificate valid at the time you was stopped. As long as you produced within 10 days i think it was then your ok. I was once asked to produce my log book along with my mot. My mot had expired, i got one the next day and produced it. I couldnt find my log book, but on reading the ticket noticed it said "produce at convieniant time" (log book only) i still havnt took it in that was abotu 5 years ago. Non of that is really relavant now as you have your sorted. both above post are correct your ok to have your car of road but must declaire it sorn.

Car Rear View Reverse Camera For BMW E39 & E46 X3 X5 X6 (#230609046847) thats the camera and item number dont think he lists them any more if not, Seller: Member ID stephenhong2009 thats the sellers name ebay of course. very nice man including a little letter with the item telling me if i ever get over to japan to look him up he and his wife will be happy to show me japan and eat some japanese......... not japanese food just eat the japanese. He could be a canibal so be carefull LOL

I was going to have bigger tail pipes to fit the cut outs better, the size they are is about 1/2 inch smaller than standard. I had bigger tail pipes but with the boxes it noisey so this was better option. These are a smaller tail pipe and have a silencer in them its a bit of a compramise. I can make these again and again but as a non gold member i cant sell them via this website. I have tried to move stuff on here before on here and been told of even when i offer stuff at cost. So cant say how much it was but it was about 25% of the cost of the car in the first place. As mentioned i made on for about £40 18 months ago from scrap pipe but as the bumper is now cut for the second pipe and i plan on keeping the car it would be new one every couple of years or back to standard and with new bumper. this is cheaper. The reverse cam is standard bmw unit from an e40 if i remember. It fits in the number plate light slot and has a bright l.e.d built in so you still have 2 number plate lights. Think it was about £20 from japan via ebay will look it up. Had 3 or 4 cams on there including an infa red one, before i settled for that one. On the screen it shows distance to "target" starting at 3 metres with green line then down to 0.5 metre with red line its very acurate as well.

from my experiance (22 years in garages) no fuel addatives work. Petrol itself will clean anything in the fuel system. If you have dirt in your fuel system your fuel filter will take care of it. if theres dirt in the system after the filter you need to ask how it got there its a sealed system from filter forward so shouldnt have got there. I used to be a retail outlet for Forte motor flushes and fuel addatives. The rep got me to use my car as an example. Placed my car on the emisions machine recorded readings. Applied both fuel treatment and oil flush to the car. followed all instruction on bottles of treatments. changed engine oil and filter, and refilled engine (paid for by the rep so might as well free oil change after all) warmed car up re checked on emisions machine. The only diffrence was a slight increase in co2 reading. My car was perfect example of what the flushes are ment to do. Its done over 160,000 miles with no history of servicing prior to me owning it (about 6 months at time of the tests). so from my experiance of following the exact directions on the fuel addative bottle it made no diffrence at all. Just on a side note, i used to restore morris minors i used to bucket of petrol to clean parts. It it will clean 30 years of rubish of parts it should keep your engine fuel system clean!

all stainless pipe and boxes mandrel bent pipes. exhaust sounds no louder at all. just twin exit pipes at the back is the only diffrence

made a twin exit exhaust 18 months ago. Used bits of scrap pipe from here and there ,bought 2 XR3I backboxes and 2x 2.25 tail pipes. welded it all together and thats that. Well it lasted about 18 months then started to fall apart so made this now.

super market petrol is cheaper than branded fuels so yes there is cheap fuel!!. In monatery terms anyway. I once read a report (although cant rememeber where) super market petrol was less refined and the RON rating was a rough guide rather than an exact rating. I have used the super plus and other higher rated/more expensive petrol and definatly noticed a diffrence. so the dearer stuff is better than the cheaper stuff, and in comparison is cheaper !!.(didnt notice the diffrence when used on my Lexus was a turbo model car that had real significant diffrences on higher ron fuels) AS a mechanic i have had a stream of cars (mainly vauxhall) with engine management lights on turning out to be lambda sensor faults. All have been re set not to come on again all had the local tesco in comman. I used to get one a week vauxhalls on tesco petrol with management lights on faults cleared not to return. I not saying petrol from tesco is cheap low grade but i wont go there no more after my light came on the day after i filled up with tesco fuel. My light wouldnt reset so had to change lamdba sensor. Again i am not saying any of this is linked but never really had a problem with lambda faults from anywere else. Fuel addatives in my experiance dont really work (not saying they dont just saying i never noticed a diffrence) My garage sells the Forte brand of flushes and addatives so i use them customers and own cars. When the rep first came in he was boasting how good his product was he gave me a oil flush and fuel addative/cleaner free of charge to use on my car as a test. As my carwasnt due an oil change he even cover the cost of the oil and filter change. I put my car on the emisions machine and printed the results including oil temp. i then followed exactly the instruction on the bottles. i retested the emisions after the weekend (about 200 miles) and the figures were slightly worse. My Lexus was at the time 150k on the clock with no service history. The fact there was no change to the read out is why the rep paid for the oil and filter change. So in my experiance they dont work as they did nothing for my car, Not saying they wont work on your car just mine wasnt affected (slightly worse infact).