I always have my car serviced by an independent Land Rover garage, but as they charge pretty much full whack for MOT's, and around were I live you can get MOT's for between £25 and £30. I have always used the cheapest MOT stations and never had an issue until this one occasion. Funny thing is I have taken my car to this same place for 4 years and don't see the point of spending over £50 when I can get it for half that price.

After all I know my car is serviced and fully road worthy and an MOT is just testing everything that in my mind should be tested when you put your car in for a service. To be honest I begrudge paying out for an MOT each year, when you consider that most people get there car serviced at-least once a year then surely all that is checked for an MOT should be included in a yearly service.

I,m sure it sounds simple in reality that if your car is serviced then it should be checked for road worthiness but I guess that would be open to abuse so I guess we have to live with MOT's.

I was in a taxi yesterday that I am amazed it managed to go forward at all (it barely went round corners without some sketchy tram-lining), so personally I am glad that MOTs might help stop cars like that getting any worse! 
07 Supercharged - Still breaking her in!

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I think you are mistaken if you believe everyone has there car serviced yearly or even in accordance with the manufacturers recomendations.
Speaking to my mot tester it appears to be a sad fact that a significant number of car owners never bother with servicing and see the mot as a check as to what needs done to their car to get away with another years cheap motoring.
Surprisingly this appears to apply to newer cars as well as the more mature variety.
Whilst I don't worry about my cars and mot's, they generally pass ok due to carrying out my own maintenance, it does concern me that other less fastidious drivers drive about in cars that are unroadworthy for a significant part of each year and are only pulled up at mot time.
It's surprising how many people drive on bald tyres these days which are only picked up at mot time.
Similarly dubious brakes and particularly corroded brake pipes would never be picked up if it were not for the mot test.
It least having the mot annually means that the idiot coming towards you is more likely to stay on his own side of the road than your side due to a catastrophic failure.
An mot test is well worth the money imo.

I assume the taxi had an MOT? Just goes to show that an MOT is no substitute for proper servicing.

Don't get me wrong, I know that MOT's are necessary, but I still begrudge paying out over £50 when I can get one for £25 to £30. The test criteria is the same no matter where you go. And there not servicing your car there just checking everything works etc.

I have been using the same MOT station for over 26 years now and having 5 vehicles it adds up to a lot of testing. In the 26 years I have had a couple of advisories and no fails. The station charges the full £54 or whatever it is and I have to travel 15 miles to get to it, but I use them because I find they are honest and fair, if something isn't right (which isn't very often) they aren't shy to let me know, but they would never try and rip me off. I could have my MOTs done a mile from my house for £19, but the horror stories I have heard about them fills me with dread, so I would rather use a tester I feel comfortable with

Well the funny thing with what happened to me was that there was no profit in it for the MOT station. Attempting to fail the car as the ABS light would not come on unless you remove the key was not something they could correct. So my only thoughts were maybe he had had a few cars in recently were the owners had removed the ABS bulb. And its possible this was fresh in his mind. I guess if there was an ABS break issue then there could be some money in it for the MOT tester if they were to fix it.

Prop wrote:

So my only thoughts were maybe he had had a few cars in recently were the owners had removed the ABS bulb. And its possible this was fresh in his mind. .

Instrument bulb for ABS and other similer controls is a fairly recent MOT introduction. And the ministry are pretty tight on it at the moment.
So your MOT tetser may not have MOT'd a range rover since the new ruling was introduced.

Just saying, like. But people tend to treat people the same way they treat them, so maybe if you were all shouty he might have though he wouldn't be very helpful

Well I was far from shouty. I was very calm and considerate, explained the fact that the key may need to be removed from the ignition to test the ABS light function. Earlier during the MOT test I even helped him as he was having trouble activating the headlamp wiper/washers. As you stated there have been a lot of recent additions to the MOT test. So after he stated he was failing my car I calmly showed him the light coming on etc, and then he stated he was still failing the car. Then I got pretty annoyed but still didn't raise my voice which in the circumstances I thought was pretty good. I just asked him how was I expected to correct this so called fault to which he just shrugged his shoulders. So then rather than get all shouty as I could feel the steam building I just said to the guy, " Fail it and I will appeal it to VOSA" and this caused a dramatic change in attitude.

I certainly didn't feel I was being condescending or arrogant in how I explained why the ABS light did not come on for him, I just explained the situation with the car needing the key to be removed from the ignition rather than just turning the key to off. I got the impression he just didn't want to admit he had made a mistake and dealt with the whole thing badly. like I said I suspect he may have had a few experiences of individuals removing the ABS bulb and just went down that train of thought.

But who knows, only the guy himself would know for sure, all I know was that I had put over my explanation of why the ABS light didn't work and it still wasn't good enough for him to pass the car. So I briefly argued the case as to how I was supposed to correct it and gave up and said to him I would appeal if he failed the car.

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Don't take it personally, I was "just saying, like", from a different view point, as in devils advocate.

Just had my Fathers car MOT'ed by Halfords for £27.42. They have a special offer on 50%. While there I saw at least 4 FFRR waiting for MOT's.

http://www.halfordsautocentres.com/mot1?ex...tAodgCgANg