My Panda was MOT'd last week, it failed on a wishbone bush and got two advisories, one was for a bent spring mount and one for a unsecured handbrake cable. Off it went to my usual garage, had the bushes done, handbrake cable secured and all was well. They sent it to their usual MOT station and it come back with ten, yes ten advisories.

 

nearside rear Direction indicator slightly discoloured

nearside front Direction indicator slightly discoloured

offside front Direction indicator slightly discoloured

front brake disc worn, pitted or scored, but not seriously weakened inner face

Exhaust has a minor leak of exhaust gases

nearside front Macpherson strut has slight movement in the upper support bearing assembly

nearside front tyre wearing inner edge

offside front tyre wearing inner edge

offside rear Shock absorber has a slightly worn bush

Oil leak

 

The bulbs are fine, they all flash bright orange, they all look complete, nothing missing off them, the discs we looked at during the bushes being done, they were again fine, no issues. Exhaust was new a few months ago, no leaks, still looks new and the tyres appear to be worn evenly, still plenty of tread all over, including the inside edge. No oil leaks that we could see either. 

 

I know there will always be some variation between testers but this is a bit OTT. In the past it wouldnt have bothered me much, but now days when you can look up a whole MOT history online it makes the car look really uncared for when there's a big list like that! Thankfully I'm not flogging it anytime soon. 

6/10 of them are BS.

 

Shocked you didn't get 'slight pitting' to every disk, and something about engine cover in place.

 

Don't think I've ever had an MOT that didn't mention brakes or tyres. Almost always utter crap to get unnecessary work done. I try to avoid having the MOT carried out by the same place that will do the work. Conflict of interest imho.

Take it back there and ask them to walk you round showing you all the 'problems'.

6/10 of them are BS.

 

Shocked you didn't get 'slight pitting' to every disk, and something about engine cover in place.

 

Don't think I've ever had an MOT that didn't mention brakes or tyres. Almost always utter crap to get unnecessary work done. I try to avoid having the MOT carried out by the same place that will do the work. Conflict of interest imho.

 

This garage is separate from the garage I use for the work, I suspect this guy was just a ****. 

 

Take it back there and ask them to walk you round showing you all the 'problems'.

 

Very temping, if I was done earlier I might have. 

I've had "engine undertray in place". That does make some sense, since it means they can't access the exhaust downpipe, inner CV joints or the inner steering rack gaiters.

Advisories usually mean the examiner spotted something they bothered to write up and many that never bother having vehicles serviced or just trust that they are done properly might at least look at the places the advisory was bothering to point out.

 

If a prospective buyer sees the advisories then good they can check or have checked to see if they were addressed or need addressed or if it was an over enthusiastic examiner.

There is no harm done if the car or vehicle is well maintained surely.

Problem is that advisories  are just that -ADVISORIES. Or are they. Or just tester dependant. Or Tester with a sensitive rear end.

"front brake disc worn, pitted or scored, but not seriously weakened inner face" - one I've seen crop up on mine since it had an MOT as a "safety check" prior to me buying it at less than 3 year old. RAC bloke told me that it was due to an area of disc not being swept by pads and showing rust- his advice, clean down this area with an angle grinder, but there was no safety implications ( save to my wallet for believing garage).

Another disc idea is that disc is worn. To this end, I've measured disc to find that disc was 20.5mm with limits as new=22 and replace =19 . But testers idea is (IMHO) TO DREAM UP MORE WORK.

Then there's under shield fitted- another rear end (IMHO) cover exercise. I've also had child seat fitted- unable to test rear seat belts. I've also had one report of a nail in a rear tyre, when it turned out to be a "suspicious " screw in a spare that had never been outside from the day it was fitted. My daughter once had a fail for a dodgy tyre and something about a brake pipe. I took her to a tyre /MOT place to have a new tyre fitted,and as I knew the manager, their MOT bloke had a look to see what was wrong with the brake pipe. his suggestion was extraction of cash from a car ignorant female driver. 

I could go on- as in the case where one of our finest breakdown services told my biker daughter that her car was low on oil. That was a few minutes after he'd jump started the car and let it run for a few minutes.