The HGV MOT Test, my experiences!

As I said earlier we were suddenly redirected to Watnall for tests. :cry: The first time there I turned up with a Sed Ak 400, booked in and waited. A chap turned up eventually with his little hammer; “what are you doing here?” I told him we had been redirected from Derby, he promptly vanished into the office! A while later he reappeared; “How any of these eight wheelers have you?” and I told him around 40. Off he went again, presumably to the manager, and when he came back he said “we already have all the NCB eight wheelers plus K & M haulage and most of the Notts coal hauliers, the last thing we want is another 40+” and I said that it wasn’t my choice either! :laughing: He tapped round outside…then vanished. Twenty minutes later back he came, I asked if he had been on a break; “working to rule mate, will have a break shortly”. Meanwhile I was chatting to another fitter waiting his turn and he said this was pretty normal, “You are in Notts now, surely you know from the miners etc how militant folk are in this region?” and that was my first taste of such things. :unamused: Anyway it passed and away I went.

Following week I took our Bedford TK road sweeper, chap starts tapping round the wheelnuts and out came the yellow chalk. “Loose wheelnut there I think, it sounds different” so I said that there’s a wheelbrace sitting there so could I borrow it please? “No, that’s for our use only” was the reply. Ok, so the rest of the test went fine and I asked if it had passed. “No, failed on a suspected loose wheelnut”. Can I borrow the brace please; “No, it’s a failure, you will have to take it away and book a retest”. So off to the manager I go, he just said it’s a failure so do as the tester said! Right, can I use your phone to call our manager then and he asked why? So I can explain why it has failed, he knows folk in high places (he didn’t!) and they can sort this farce once and for all. “Well you can’t use our brace but if somebody has one in another truck, and will let you borrow it, then we will let you use it and pass it” and that is what happened. All that drama over nothing. :unamused: Why did THEY need a wheelbrace for heavens sake? :confused:

Almost every truck I took there for test was the same, they always found something trivial and failed a few but usually I could sort it there and then. Apparently they were the same with other firms from the Derbyshire region. One day however I was taking Mick Shaw’s Haulmaster and half way down the Via Gelia to Cromford the instrument panel caught fire!! :open_mouth: Luckily it was just a few wires shorted which I ripped out but it left me with no wipers, washers or indicators. I phoned our garage to send somebody out to Watnall and I carried on. At the test centre I explained the situation to the manager; “not a problem, we will test the rest and if you can repair it then we will test those items” and that’s what we did with a temporary fix. They couldn’t have been nicer, apparently most of the ‘old guard’ had been removed and things improved, but we were very pleased when Derby had us back again though! :laughing:

The last time I went to Watnall was many years later when I was driving/fitting for a local haulier and picked up a GV9 for a loose spring bolt on a roadside check, we had to go there for a full test to clear the GV9 and everything was ok.

Pete.