Well chaps, failed this morning but not by a huge margin, to be honest I didn’t think I would get out of the test centre! Had the trailer lined up perfectly for the reverse into the bay then overcooked it, took two shunts and a look see and got it in, just.
Got 4 faults, two serious one on observation which I thought was a bit dubious.
Approaching a small roundabout, road on the right obscured by a large bush, committed to entering the roundabout when a car appears from behind the bush and enters the roundabout, was he first or was I? Anyway the second serious was due to a similar situation but this time at a junction ,couldn’t quite see and had to inch forward, car coming so stopped and drifted back a tiny bit but that of course is an instant fail.
The two minors are hardly worth mentioning.
Never mind, next time. I may get to drive an artic (with L plates and a qualified driver) up to Coventry next week, which is nice 
Sorry to hear that,dont let it get you down,its just one of those things!
Keep going and you’ll get there,I would love to get going on my class 1 but the bank have other ideas for my money,one day I suppose.
Simon.
Hard luck m8, hope things go better for you next time.
To gliderman & Swampey
**NEXT TIME =** :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: **NEXT TIME =** :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: **NEXT TIME =** :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: **NEXT TIME =** :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: **NEXT TIME =** :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: **NEXT TIME =** :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:Gliderman
Snap
The morning started off wrong, when arriving at the Airstrip to collect the truck, I was informed that there was a leak on the trailer, but after some fiddling about they go it so that the pressure reading in the cab remained at the correct level.
Weather I had any brakes in the trialer, I dunno ■■? we seemed to stop fine enough.
Got to the test centre, parked the trailer in the box with no probs, brake test no probs, went out on the test route and everything was perfect until the last roundabout before getting to the test centre.
Some women in a Micra from the opposite direction ,indicated with intention to turn left, I committed and didnt see any problem as the road was clear, then without warning or maybe I didnt see it, she change direction at the last minute and severd infront of us, lucky I stopped.
I thought the examiner would have over looked this, we did stop and give way, and the test has been faultless from the start, he’d already overlooked a few things I though should have been marked for .but then at the test centre doing the uncoupling exercise
Yes - didnt get a chance to ask if I wanted to do or not …
Uncoupled perfect, it was when we had recoupled forward and tried to pull the trailer forward, it moved to my shock 
But the trailer brake had been applied and checked, off I jumped out to pull the handle, it only moved 1 notch tighter.
Could have been the fact it was a new cable and was stretching ■■?
Then when I asked him to check my lights, he advised me they didnt work correctly and where very faint ■■?
Apprently the wires had come adrift from the connecting box and was cream cracked.
Well I failed on these two things, Havnt decided what my next move is…
Bad luck m8…I didn’t bother with the coupling, uncoupling, just asked him if I’d passed or not! The standard of driving has to be impeccable, which of course isn’t a bad thing, just makes it a bloody hard slog. Keep at it though, it does make you feel like giving up sometimes and I think there is a bit of luck involved but it will happen.
Oh and thanks Tacho, Rog and Simon for the kind words of sympathy.
bad luck on the test fail, did it myself the other week, nothing you can do apart from booking another test 
Swampey wrote:-
Uncoupled perfect, it was when we had recoupled forward and tried to pull the trailer forward, it moved to my shock
But the trailer brake had been applied and checked, off I jumped out to pull the handle, it only moved 1 notch tighter.
Could have been the fact it was a new cable and was stretching ■■?
When you uncoupled did you go back and check the park brake, and did you check it before you recoupled, because if it is a ratchet type then when you drop the susies the brakes ‘relax’ and the ratchet brake has a tendency to need re-tightening to be effective.
.
When I did my Artic training with Zenith my 1st day I was sick, quite bad so lost a whole day of training. 2nd and 3rd day we used a Volvo FL7 which had brakes as snappy as a House Wife, but the gearbox was lovely. The parking brake had a stupid 2 second delay on it, so you had to release it 2 seconds before you wanted to pull away otherwise you’d still be there! I got really frustrated with it in the end and I managed to spin the rear tyres on the trailer, with my instructor dropping a comment about it!
Day 4 the training vehicle was changed as the test day booked for my C+E at Botley was exactly the same time as another chap who was learning on the same vehicle, this time a DAF CF 290. We barely made it out of the Airfield when the Throttle Cable snapped and we lost all the throttle!! 1 hour spent inside Daedalus and the garage managed to replace it, Horray! Now I thought the brakes on the Volvo were sharp…with this brake pedal, you simply rest your foot on top of the Pedal and you could hear a ‘click’ where the Fuse box had activated the brake lights, it was that sensitive!
Day 5 approached and Test Day, 2PM at Botley. On that day I failed with 10 driving faults and 1 serious fault, I passed 99.9% of the test until I re-connected the last Suzi electrical lead. Having no experience on Trailers before this I just took the suzi out of the (what I thought was) holder in the Tractor unit and into the Trailer…turned out I’d actually taken it out of the Live end where the electrics are and put it into the Trailer, so it was a dead-end! (Dough!).
Never mind, 2nd C+E attempt I passed with 3 driving faults…same examiner as well, was relieved to see I didn’t ■■■■-up again!!!
Zenith Driver Training
Sorry to hear you failed mate. Keep your chin up though. You will nail it next time
The hard part is getting a flipping job driving class1 once you pass. Im still applying for jobs and col calling. I haven’t given up yet by a long way but passing your test is just half the battle 
But the trailer brake had been applied and checked, off I jumped out to pull the handle, it only moved 1 notch tighter.
Could have been the fact it was a new cable and was stretching ■■?
Are they still using the ratchet brake type 
- most of them went out with the ark.
When I joined my present company, we had one but I soon got them to change it.
Good morning Lyonator, I think you may have got my post mixed up with Swampeys m8
Paul