It passed the MOT

What a shock !!!

none of the advisories
none of the faults


Moral of the story is


DON'T USE KWIK FIT FOR ANYTHING !!!


And I saved loadsamoney !!! :)

The Kwik Fit MOT

A word to the wise..... DON'T !!! 

it failed on three points 

1) Rear Coil Spring (Fair enough)

2) Emissions

3) Brakes (balance)

SET RANT MODE = ON

Now I knew the catalyst had to be at temperature to "light up" and start working and it seemed the MOT tester was blissfully unaware of this fairly important point needless to say it only just failed on his emissions tester....

Now I've been and witnessed a fair few MOT's in my time and I was starting to get a little suspicious of this testers motives, but lets recap for a second

it failed on a rear coil spring, Emissions and brakes

Call me a cynic but isn't that Kwik Fits bread and butter ?? The rear coil spring was a given it had snapped off at the bottom, no arguing with that one, but the brakes ?? when it had only recently had new discs and pads fitted less than 6 months ago ????...

So not being one to lay down and take the bill for new discs/pads and a catalytic converter even though I was warned that if I drove it away I would lose the "special" prices .... I went to my usual MOT tester whom I couldn't get an appointment with previously hence Kwik Fit..... and told him the sorry tale.... 

He agreed the rear coil spring was a given, but he doubted the other failures..... so he told me to whazz it up the road for about 3 miles in third gear at high revs to really toast the catalytic converter and then he would put the gas analyser on it .... 

low and behold it came out as a pass, not only that it came out bang on the manufacturers specifications, he also inspected the brakes and said there was nothing cosmetically wrong with them and that light surface rust was not a failure of any braking system and was more to do with the amount of road salt about than anything else....neither was it a fail nor should it have been an advisory.....

So I'm off to my usual MOT tester tomorrow and he says as long as the rear coil spring is replaced (already done that today as was the front wheel bearing) it will pass with flying colours and the other advisories are purely cosmetic rubbish in order to get in business for Kwik Fit....

And as a small footnote, I knew the nearside front wheel bearing was shot..... it sounded like a Wellington bomber over Dresden, and despite the MOT tester wiggling the wheels and rotating the wheel whilst jacked up he didn't spot it, not only that he took the car out for a drive with it sounding like a Wellington bomber and still he came back and didn't mention the bearing noise (and that would have been an automatic fail) 

I had the new bearing on the back seat ready to fit after the MOT thinking that it would fail on the bearing alone .... but alas he couldn't even spot that.... 

So another recap.....it failed on all the things Kwik Fit make their money on, the only thing he couldn't fail were the tyres because they are very obviously brand new....

I am appalled that an MOT tester is allowed to operate like this and am wondering if a freedom of information request into Kwik Fit would highlight if the MOT testers were actually on commission for any failures that get fixed that day....

Had I stupidly agreed with him the costs would have been

£165 catalytic converter (that's normal price not Kwik Fit price)

£86 for two discs (nothing wrong with them)

£25 for pads (nothing wrong with them)

£276 + 20% VAT  .... FOR NOTHING !!! they would be removing perfectly serviceable parts !!!!

I am seriously underestimating the prices here I was hearing £500 - £600 on the phone to other customers who's cars had failed the MOT with similar problems one guy was quoted £375 for a set of discs and pads because they were scored NO NO NO scored discs are NOT MOT failures.....

Give them a very wide berth.... my advice at a push if you desperately need a tyre fitting then go, other than that forget it.....

Anyway here's the complaint I fired off to rip off Kwik Fit central I will have to see if it bears any fruit... but I won't hold my breath.....

SET RANT MODE = OFF

"I had my BMW booked in at 12pm today at Pensarn in Carmarthen for an MOT and everything went well until it failed on emissions, it also failed on a broken rear coil spring. I was however suspicious when the tester stated that my brakes were imbalanced and that my discs were borderline/in need of attention, he soon retracted that statement after I told him that the front discs and pads had been changed less than 6 months ago at a BMW garage, they are in fact gleaming as you would expect at only 6 months old, he then stated that maybe they just needed a little clean up, rust on discs or pads are not covered under the MOT as long as they pass the brake test which he seems to think they didn't when they both equally pulled 220 kg is beyond me, not happy with his findings except for the broken rear coil spring, which I accept I went to my "usual" MOT tester based in St Clears, low and behold it passed it's emissions after having it's catalyst warmed to the correct temperature and not only did it just pass it was well under.

I am in two minds to get VOSA involved in this because it's disgraceful that a car other than it's broken coil spring, which has now been replaced is failed because the tester didn't know what he was doing. He didn't even know what a mass air flow sensor was when I was questioning him about the emissions failure.

I would appreciate a full refund of my £30 MOT fee as it will go towards a MOT test centre which isn't swayed by commercial profit, had I accepted his findings I would now be considerably out of pocket having to buy the discs/pads and probably catalytic converter in order to pass the MOT, I'm surprised he didn't fail the tyres as well but that would have been very hard considering they are new. Dick Turpin was at least honest in that he held a pistol to your face before asking you for money.

Sincerely

Derek Brabrook"

MOT time is with us again

It was booked last week with Kwik fit mainly because they had a deal on for £30 which isn't bad, alas like all things car related once the car knows its going to be tested it starts to selectively fall apart our BMW was no exception to this rule...

on the day of the test I did my usual quick run around the car checking the lights and the last thing I checked was the screen water jets... needless to say they just dribbled.... "Ahhh no problem" I thought it's probably out of water....NOPE

so ensued a mad dash around various car parts emporiums in Carmarthen to track down a new washer pump which ended up in GFS car parts in Swansea.... I told him the registration and he chirped "we have two types in stock" so I told him to get both and I selected on the type of connector...went out to the car and started to remove the offending washer pump only to find that it wasn't going to be that simple....in fact it was completely different to the one I was taking out.... Bugger !!! What is worse is that the old pump when it was replaced WORKED PERFECTLY !!!.... so I took the replacement part back in and got a refund and raced back to Carmarthen for my 11am appointment with the MOT inspector ....

I presented myself at the front desk gave my name and registration number and announced my 11am appointment only to be stared at blankly and told no you don't have an appointment today.... "have you checked the date on the booking form?" so I rang Andrea and after a bit and a moment of silence she announced "it was yesterday not today"

I apologised to the Kwik Fit man who I suspect spoke some Mandarin to me in reply (just like the one in the advert) Well I think it was Mandarin and left.... Oh Dear

"Never mind" I thought shit stuff happens, mistakes can be made and laughed it off....after all what is the point in getting upset about things you can't change ???? you idiot

It turns out the washer bottle had algae in it and every time the pump sucked it got a big mop of plant life blocking it.... so I bleached the tank to death (and unfortunately my favourite Nike green hoodie) and refitted it .... problem solved....

However......

Roll on the next day after we had rebooked our appointment at no extra cost and on starting the car and rolling down the road we had the familiar Dresden bombing raid sound.... yup our nearside front wheel bearing was on the verge of shuffling off to the wheel bearing place in the sky....FAN-FRICKEN-TABULOUS...

So I've spent the weekend finding out the part we need at the cheapest possible price and I will have to dust off my spanners yet again.... The only problem I can foresee is that I haven't got a bearing puller and I'll need something to pull the internal race off the stub axle other than that it should be a fairly straightforward job.... being an old hand now at bearing removal and re-fitting......at least I won't need a 50 ton press to press the bearings in......

So lets hope the MOT man doesn't spot any play in the bearing or its a fail :( it's more about avoiding the retest fee than not getting the bearing replaced !!! fingers crossed :)

in fact I might just take it back to the  rip off merchant  garage that fitted the ABS sensor in the first place on that side because it's making the noise from that very same wheel and make him squirm .... hmmmmm not that the abs sensor is RIGHT behind the bearing housing ......

Vorsprung durch Technik .... bugger that's Audi not BMW ...... in which case

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