yorkshire terrier:
I worked for a firm who were on a green light with vosa and the maintenance was brilliant,but driver hours were often bent and sometimes ignored,I never ever got pulled in and never saw vosa at the yard even after a couple of blokes who left had tipped vosa off about them.
This is why OCRS is so badly flawed. All you need to do is make sure trucks pass MOT first time, once a year, and you can effectively do what you want for the rest of the year.
I don’t really understand why first time mot pass is such a big deal.
Here’s the argument:
The TCs and VOSA/DVSA will say.
You are required to keep the truck roadworthy. It should be driver-checked every day and workshop checked typically every six weeks. The TC gives you an O licence only on condition that you are able and prepared to do this.
The annual test is the bare minimum for roadworthiness on the day…it’s not an assessment of whether the truck will still be roadworthy the next month, week or even day. You know it’s coming, you book the date of the test, and if you can’t get the truck up to meet that minimum standard for just one chosen day in the whole year, what does that say about you?
Luckily the industry has taken heed, and the vast majority of trucks do now pass first time.
Vans? Last time I looked, more than half fail their first test each year.
Yes, they’ve taken heed and effectively diverted resources from periodic maintenance to excessive MOT prep.
The whole thing is a fascinating insight into how idiots with a tick box mentality and no real word experience think though.
Latique:
I don’t really understand why first time mot pass is such a big deal.
because a vehicle that is going into a garage to be checked/maintained every six weeks should not be failing an MOT .any MOT testable parts of the vehicle should be spot on
Who does actual mechanic’s service checks as often as every 6 weeks? Every 3 months maybe…
What about Emissions? - They can be a “MOT pass” one day, and be ‘just over’ on SO2, CO, or NO2 the next - and be an MOT fail that isn’t picked up until the next service check - possibly weeks away…
When I buy a second hand car - I always like to look at the “advisories”. If the item “about to fall over” is bad enough, I won’t buy no matter how cheap it is. I’m very suspicious of MOTs with “no advisories whatsoever” as well - could be a conjured up MOT because a car showroom’s gaffer has a brother who runs a mechanics workshop or something… I did get one good deal once though - The vendor was saying “This car has a brand new cat converter on it”. When he couldn’t produce the “manufacturer’s guarantee” - I asked for a significant discount - which I got - no quibble.
(The discount was more than the cost of getting another one put in myself!) That car subsequently lasted me 6 years - the longest I’ve ever made a second hand car last for.
(I buy 'em, and run 'em into the ground - I’ve never actually ‘sold a car on’ in my life - only scrapped/PX’d them!)
The only truck emissions test at MoT is one for visible smoke… and they only get the smoke meter out if they can see black smoke…unless its an RCP/LEZ truck
