hello,

my vrs is currently sat at freeborn skoda southampton for its MOT ....i get a phone call to tell me its failed because it has left-hand-drive european headlights!!!!

i didn't know such a thing existed!

i've already spoken to the skoda dealer i purchased it from and hopefully they'll get it sorted soonist....to top it off skoda southampton want to charge me for a MOT re-test when its not my fault that it failed!

anyone else had the same/similar happen to them?

thanks,

matt

The free retest thing is a service provided by some testing stations, basically the testing station is taking the hit on the cost because they have to pay for the retest. Retests are not normally free, although I see where you are coming from. I assume your car was new, right hand drive when you bought it.

I built a MIDAS kit car abovt 15 yrs ago the wiring and lights were fitted at the factory and when I took it to MOT the left light had a \__ pattern and the right light a __/ pattern to the dip beam .French Cibie headlights with a little lever on the bottom for lhd and rhd so very easily sorted . Headlamps used to have a little arrow on them to show what side of the road they were meant for ,these headlamps had arrows pointing in both directions ,brilliant lights though

i get a phone call to tell me its failed because it has left-hand-drive european headlights!!!!

Do they have a "UK conversion" kit on them? If so, it shouldn't have failed...not having the "kick" to the left isn't a failure, but dazzling oncoming users would be (my previous car was a euro import with a headlight kit on it, the MOT testers always scratched their head over it but it never failed).

Rob.

My understanding of retests was that they were free as a little complimentary extra if you let the testing station do the repair work etc. I wouldn't really expect to be able to take a vehicle away for repairs then bring it back for a free test. Have your cake and eat it etc.

i would expect the selling dealer to reimburse you for the extra MOT the vehicle has to have due to their negligence with regard the headlamp fault

surely the vehicle has to be sold "fit for purpose" and it obviously isn't if it has L/H drive headlamps on a R/H drive car

Bad luck m8:thumbdwn: the selling dealer should be held responsible as they obviously did not PDI it properly. Speaking as a MOT tester you can get round it by fitting a conversion sticker so that the beam image is flat ie ----- , still the proper way is new headlamps.

Unfotunately the MOT @

There are some items that the garage *must* offer a free retest on - things like blown bulbs - but anything beyond that is a business decision for them to make.

i would expect the selling dealer to reimburse you for the extra MOT the vehicle has to have due to their negligence with regard the headlamp fault

surely the vehicle has to be sold "fit for purpose" and it obviously isn't if it has L/H drive headlamps on a R/H drive car

In my mind, as long as you bought a car from UK dealer for use in UK, the above statement MUST be the definative answer, and if that means that you had to remove the car from the testing agent then your selling dealer must also take the hit for the retest fee. Surely if he is an above board trader, he can recoup all costs from SUK and maybe the retest fee from the "wad" you made on the deal.

We had a similar thing a while back on a 2006 car (not Skoda), the owner had got it new off a company that was importing them from Holland. The UK importer then got him to sell their cars and on this one the UK importer picked up the bill for a pair of new headlamps.

If you have had had the car since new and it was imported by Skoda UK, then it is of the wrong specification and Skoda UK should pick up the bill.