read an article this week in one of the mags, stating that new regulations will be coming in which will make the garage that holds your maintenance contract equally liable for the road worthiness of your vehicles, and not before time in my opinion, it’s always been a crazy situation where you rely on a garage to inspect your wagon but get a pull, even the next day and it’s totally down to you as the operator if they find a fault with the garage beyond reproach.
is it possible that vosa have at last made a change to the rules that actually benefits the operator?
Great news and about time too, I got a pull from VOSA on a roadside check, and matey went over the wagon, usual stuff, and advised me that I had excessive play on the drag link end.
When I produced the inspection sheet for the previous afternoon, and only 280 km’s travelled, he said that maybe they never saw it, just get it done asap 
when i went back to the service agents, they never really took it on board, just annoyed they got caught out i think… 
I heard this from a fitter at Mercedes Avonmouth, my Megaspace was in for some work and we were chatting about when it failed the MOT twice in a row on brakes, when it was under a full R&M contract with Mercedes Benz. That will have been recorded against my O’ licence, but I will have no recourse to the garage who were looking after the motor.
VOSA having a good idea, it would seem so, but don’t hold your breath for another.
Its a ridiculous situation. The garage want your truck to fail the MOT Plate so they can charge you again for putting it right, VOSA will revoke your licence if you get several failures, and then you are up in front of the TC for maintenance issues.
Most commercial garages will happily take your truck for test without even looking at it, as the MOT will find any faults in their opinion. Unfortunately a failures will cost you your livelyhood and reputation
brilliant forum to start with…
regarding the garages want your truck to fail so they can make more money…cant agree with that one.Run my own worksop for 12 years now and my idea is to save the operator money…
1 if he has more money in his bank he pays me faster
2 as a workshop the ministry can recommend us to local operators or “recommend they engage the services of another workshop if we do not perform”
i can assure you whilst it is to our benefit to get along with vosa i by no means roll over and have had several succesful arguments on behalf of my customers.
As for being responsible for the condition of a customers truck/trailer how can i MAKE someone else have a repair done if they dont want to / cant afford to / or havent got time …and yes were only human we do miss things so do vosa so do drivers on their daily checks
I ran trucks aswell as a garage but got out due to poor rates so i do sympathise.
I along with any workshop worth it salts are busy enough without having to make work,cant and dont see why we should or could be held responsible.
two sides to every story, in my opinion a commercial garage should never have a truck fail a test that they’ve had plenty of time to prepare, something that happens regularly and not just the little men, i know of one large scania concern who recently sent a unit in for test and it failed on an illegal tyre! ffs!
from the operators point of veiw, you pay good money for wagons to be inspected and maintained by what are supposedly proffessionals, so why, if that wagons then found to have a long standing fault that garage has somehow “missed” shouldn’t the garage be held as responsible as the operator?
having had a few run ins with the minstry over maintainence issues, that were down to the garage not being able (or willing) to do inspections on time, to me it’s the best thing that could possibly happen.
Firstly welcome AH.
I have to agree with Paul on yhis one.
I’m on an R&M contract with a main dealer.
All my maintenace is done by them whether it is covered by the contract or not.
I pay them good money to do a job but if they do not do that job properly then it is me who is punished by the authorities not the garage.
Why shouldn’t the garage be help culpable in law for it’s failings as well?
If I as the O/D of thevehicle have to get underneath a vehicle everytime I pick it up from the dealer to check they have done what was supposed to be done properly then dosn’t that defeat the object of taking to them in the first place?
My expertize is in pointing it in the right direction whilst avoiding all the obstructions joe public put in my way.I’m not a fitter so I have to trust my dealer to do his part for me professionally if he dosn’t then in my opinion he should face the music equally if not more so.
itsa tough call,we check it and repair it it goes out legal and safe…at the time of mot its only got to be right at the time of inspection to pass …you lads can check all you want ie lights,wheel nuts etc before you set off but blow a headlamp bulb or damage a tyre to cord whilst travelling and hey presto a nice piece of pink paper coming your way.
personnaly which may be a bit radical but i think that most operators do there utmost to run legal anyway and the way the industry is regulated on a roadside level they should scrap the mot its a waste of time …its only got to be right once!
take the o licence…restricted licence dont need a cpc holder
standard does…eh both types of operator run trucks but one has to demonstrate he is of good character and knows all the relevent info to gain a cpc the other doesnt…one runs a truck to deliver goods for other people and it must be safe ,legal and reliable or he doesnt earn the other whilst yes tries to adhere to the above makes money from his own goods he delivers and not the vehicle so probably (allegidly) may not be too interested in the vehicle aslong as it runs.
Both of us are stifeled by admin and rules and regs if they perhaps relaxed some of the more petty ( but in there eyes serious) regs then there would be more scope and enthusiasm to stay legal and not just “get by” whilst trying to earn a living and stay in business.
spose debate could go on forever there is no right or wrong answer at the end of the day if your chosen engineer is failing bin him and if our operator customers run “sheds” we can bin them.
fair comment, as an operator even a one man band, all you want to do is go out and earn a crust and you want to know your wagons spot on while your doing it, as sean says we’re not fitters and are not rquired to be, but get a pull and and it’s all down to you if theres a fault found, that can’t be right if your giving a garage a good lump of your money and trust for them to maintain your wagon.
spose the new regs, as you say, will work both ways, the operator gets some comfort in knowing his garage isn’t going to skip anything and at the same if a garage has someone on their books who is flying a bit close to wind by not having regular inspections they can off load him sharpish.