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inside of the last 3 weeks, ive moted three cars all failed on just headlights, online fee £27 headlight adjustment £11.50 . any body else noticing this trend
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No. My wife's car passed without problems yesterday.
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Nor me, mine passed on Wednesday. Does your mot man have a duff headlight tester?
Edited by Old Navy on 21/08/2009 at 23:24
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i suggested this to the stand in manager , who agreed it looked a bit bad, and he knocked a pound off
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ive moted three cars all failed on just headlights
Is this a general question, or specifically Vauxhalls? If the former one of us will remove the make from the title. Not compulsory to chose make / model for discussion, that only applies to Technical matters.
That aside, had my 1st MOT on my Vectra-C 2 months ago and the headlight settings were spot on. Pretty good considering I adjusted them myself 7 months ago as I thought they were originally too low.
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Just MOT'd my Almera. They adjusted the headlamp level last year (at no charge). I found it too low and raised it a bit.
I thought I'd better use the adjustment knob inside the car to set it down a bit before the test , but forgot.
It passed without comment!
I guess it depends what sort of mood the tester's in.
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They adjusted the headlamp level last year (at no charge). I found it too low and raised it a bit.
I've always suspected that DIY fiddling is one of the reasons why some oncoming cars have headlights set too high!
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yaris corsa agila . when i was dropping off the yaris, the chap before me said, mine will be finished in a minute their just adjusting the lights. none of my cars have touched regarding lights since previous mots. in this summer weather you dont really get a chance to notice if the lights are missalighned. The manager blamed it on the speed humps and pot holes.
i think he might be right, so these rough roads cost us another £ 11.50 every year
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inside of the last 3 weeks ive moted three cars all failed on just headlights online fee £27 headlight adjustment £11.50 . any body else noticing this trend
Nationwide Autocentres caught me with the same old trick, when I took up the offer of a discounted MOT. I ended up paying a few pounds more in total than the usual test fee, they added 15+vat to adjust the headlights.
The problem is they don't ask you before adjusting and you have no way of proving they were not wrong. Unfortunately they are sometimes not very bright about how they do it. Their excuse on mine was the headlights needed lowering!!. I asked how that can be the case on a car that has had no accidents from new and passed at least 3 MOTs with no problem. They said the headlights can move during a cars life...when I pointed out that if they move through vibration, the direction is downwards, not upwards...they had little answer to that. In the end though you can't do anything and won't bother for £15
The following year at a different testing station, they almost failed the car for the headlights being too low...which I already knew because now the view down the road is fairly poor as the headlights shine a very short distance on dipped beam.
The other little favourite is to fail it on brakes and tell you the pads need replacing....when they don't...if you look really green they may even try to get you for a set of discs (mate of mine was told he needed new discs on a Renault 1.4 with less than 20,000 miles on the clock (chuckle). Ultimately though a tester can fail pretty much any car if they try hard enough.
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There's always the appeal procedure.
Suddenly a change of heart is often forthcoming!
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I did the £27 MOT too, and guess what... the headlinghts needed adjusting for £11
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Me too - well at least sort of.
My old Vectra has had headlamps adjusted (down) last 2 years when in for service & MOT by dealer. 1st year it shows up online in MOT history as an initial fail then is passed, but at least they did not charge me. Both years they said nothing at all to me.
Worse of all, I drove the car at nigt and it was uindrivable with the dipped beams pointing down about as far as they go, ie even with the inside adjuster tweaked up.
So now I take precaution of setting the interior adjuster at lowest, and also take the car to my "car park and wall" location asap to adjust the lamps properly.
A point of interest - I always use top quality bulbs (like philips, osram or bosch) to ensure that the beam pattern is ideal & distinct rather than the splatter sometimes from cheap bulbs.
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I took daughter's SEAT Ibiza to our village garage for its MOT at 5yrs old after being scammed by the SEAT dealer the year before.
When I collected it they said it passed - all OK. But there was a failure notice attached due to low headlamps. The garage had adjusted them and then passed the car. I was bemused by this - they were set at the highest on the dash control, and the under-bonnet adjusters have never been touched during the car's life.
The garage didn't charge me so there's no question of it being a scam but I did read somewhere that they like to fail cars if they can as too many passes attracts VOSA attention.
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I remember my Sabb 99 failing an MOT because the tester said the handbrake didn't work. I asked how he tested it - "by putting the rear wheels on the rolling road, of course". "Er", I said, "Saab handbrakes work on the front wheels". The car passed!
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Last but one time the mx5 was in for it's MOT the tester said the headlights were too low and handed me a screwdriver.
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When I collected it they said it passed - all OK. But there was a failure notice attached due to low headlamps. The garage had adjusted them and then passed the car. I was bemused by this - they were set at the highest on the dash control and the under-bonnet adjusters have never been touched during the car's life.
Exactly the same thing just happened to my Megane. Is there an emerging pattern here, or can we put it down to more speed bump damage along with tyres and springs? Logically, I suppose those constant repetitive shocks that no car type vehicle has been designed to take will cause the headlights to drop. I'll certainly bear it in mind at the next MOT.
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