Local Council worshops

[TheCoolerKing]

I've been reading this article and was wondering if anyone has any experiences of using them.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-mot

I like this bit the best 'Local Council worshops come highly recommended, they dont do repairs so they have no interest in trying to generate work for themselves'.

Naturally, anthing that keeps money out of the dealers pocket has got to be a good thing.

[theironduke]

Lots of the guys used to use the MOT station at the depot when i worked for a local council. The grease monkeys were a lazy bunch of sods but the MOT's were 100% and the MOT tester really knew their stuff.

[mcford]

You may find that they won't do little repairs such as replacing bulbs, wiper blades and adjusting the headlamps, which would mean an outright fail rather than a fail followed by a pass (PRS). The PRS system allows the tester to do minor repairs at the end of the test (within 1 hour), whereby he can print a fail immediately followed by a pass. Not doing these repairs would mean another trip for a retest.

[redtwin]

mcford said:

You may find that they won't do little repairs such as replacing bulbs, wiper blades and adjusting the headlamps, which would mean an outright fail.

These are things that we as responsible motorists are checking before every journey though, no.?

I would be deeply ashamed of myself if I submitted a car with a blown bulb or worn out wipers etc and would deserve the outright fail.

[NWMark]

Not all Council ones are the same, as some do do repairs and operate pretty much like any other garage.

[davidjpowell]

I have not used the Council ones, but have used a commercial garage which had a car test station stuck on the end. They did not do repairs.

The peace of mind from knowing that you were not being ripped off was actually remarkable.

[breagh]

I use our local council testing station and it's great.

[paulmurr]

Have used council stations in the past and would use them again. The local Renault stealer, lets call it Veg Rardy, failed the wifey's Clio a few years ago on 'front brake condition' and would change the discs and pads for the princely sum of £260. I instructed them to leave the car alone and I drove it to the local council testing place who passed it without so much as an advisory. I even asked the tester, specifically, if there was anything wrong with the brakes. There was nothing wrong with them at all. We got another 10k miles from that set of pads and we're still on the original discs now.

[steve_amv8]

redtwin said:

mcford said:

You may find that they won't do little repairs such as replacing bulbs, wiper blades and adjusting the headlamps, which would mean an outright fail.

These are things that we as responsible motorists are checking before every journey though, no.?

Not if the large proportion of numpties around here is anything to go by ....

[mxspyder]

Thumbs up for Barnet Council MOT Centre, always go there - its my lucky test centre!

[TheCoolerKing]

paulmurr said:

Have used council stations in the past and would use them again. The local Renault stealer, lets call it Veg Rardy, failed the wifey's Clio a few years ago on 'front brake condition' and would change the discs and pads for the princely sum of £260. I instructed them to leave the car alone and I drove it to the local council testing place who passed it without so much as an advisory. I even asked the tester, specifically, if there was anything wrong with the brakes. There was nothing wrong with them at all. We got another 10k miles from that set of pads and we're still on the original discs now.

Somebody should clean up the industry it stinks

[Silver Smudger]

mcford said:

The PRS system allows the tester to do minor repairs at the end of the test (within 1 hour), whereby he can print a fail immediately followed by a pass. Not doing these repairs would mean another trip for a retest.

That explains how my recent MOT hiccup occurred. It failed due to a sidelight bulb being out (even though it was less than a week old) which I was aware of, but didn't have time to fix that morning. The sidelight bulb was replaced by the garage and the MOT passed, even though they forgot to plug the main headlight back in before I collected it.