The car is going to be booked in for its test this week. Simple issue - does it need to be warm before it goes in so that they can check the DPF or not ? The garage that's doing it is less than a mile away and it obviously won't be warm if I go straight there. Are they likely to fail it or just say that they weren't able to test it ?

If it's anything like the garages I've experienced you can be sure it'll idle for 20 minutes before they test it.

Before the smoke test we should take an oil temperature reading, if the tester was like me I'd appreciate that the engine is up to working temperature as it will save time on the test.

 

I failed one the other day as I couldn't test it due to over full oil, it retested fine after 1.5 litres had been drained.

As a diesel, they should attempt a smoke test which involves revving the engine to its maximum, possibly not the best thing to do to a cold engine. I would take a different route to the test station and ensure engine temperature was up to normal.

Sounds like a good run before the test then.

As a diesel, they should attempt a smoke test which involves revving the engine to its maximum, possibly not the best thing to do to a cold engine. I would take a different route to the test station and ensure engine temperature was up to normal.

As my car has DSG it cannot be revved to max in Neutral or Park, only when in gear and being driven.  So how is my car tested?  Can a manual vRS CR be revved to max when in neutral?

The car gets revved to its maximum governed speed, if the speed is 2500 rpm in neutral then that's the speed it's tested at.

Car passed but didn't register anything on the emissions gizmo....