Front brake application uneven

Also can someone define "major leak from front flexi pipe" - I asked where on the flexi was the leaking coming from - reply - "loads of black smoke from the flexi couldn't see where it was coming from"

(Its a common rail diesel engine with a 4.5-5K redline)

Just stuck it on stands, let it idle for several minutes, crawled underneath with it running...nada
got the wife to rev it, 2K nothing, 3.5K-4K feeling some gases coming through the mesh but no clouds of smoke and barely able to feel anything with a dry hand, had to wet my hand to feel where it was coming from let alone any black smoke..

back brakes sorted - handbrake adjuster just needed reset so the auto adjuster could correct itself.

Also "power steering reservoir leaking", looked underneath...one (literally one) old looking spot mixed with road grime, dry all around, had a good wipe about with shop towel, nothing else showing at all.....flushed the fluid a few weeks back...top of the bottle bone dry, so maybe ran down the bottle and stuck there.

So not sure how he is justifying a fail for a leak, given the top of the reservoir is bone dry and the droplet was contaminated with road salt etc...seems quite harsh...

Dynamo
Cheers for the reply
No mention of imbalance at all, doing an e stop with hands off wheel at 40mph, call pulled perfectly straight and even, no pulling to either side.
Noticed the gauges during the brake test, one was higher than the other but not what you would call massively so.

Fail list
Parking brake: efficieny below requirements (3.7.b.7)
front brake application uneven (3.7.b.2)
rear brake application uneven (3.7.b.2)
rear parking brake recording little or no effort nearside rear )
Exhaust has major leak of gases front (flexi) (7.1.2)
Power steering components leaking (at reservoir) (2.3.3b)

Advisory list:
Offside front (steering arm slight play)
Nearside front (steering arm slight play)
Offside front (brake sticking)
Exhaust has a minor leak of gases centre
Exhaust has a minor leak of gases rear (silencer)
(engine covers fitted)
(side skirts fitted)

So thus far have done:
PAS reservoir cleaned and wiped all over...no leak, just spillage from a few weeks back that had run down and remained on bottle of the pump)

Exhaust had a look and felt all round flexi, couldn't find any major leak even held at 3.5K rpm, sealed the minor (very minor) leak I found with high temp silicon

Front brakes - stripped passenger side front brake, roughed the pad, cleaned the carriers, greased them and cleaned slider pines and regreeased them also, need to do the drivers side tomorrow.

Rear brakes - Reset the handbrake mech and readjusted it, both wheels now locking hard when handbrake applied. Going to give the pads a roughen tomorrow both sides to rule out glazed pads.

On the plus side
My "deteriorated" numberplates he advised on last year have somehow improved in condition this year, despite looking worse than last year
My front brake lines have cured themselves of corrosion on both sides.
Not sure how brake lines uncorrode themselves but...seems they do...that or he was taking the michael last year....

Emissions print out there
Oil Temperature 75C
Tested at below 80C oil temperature (or an acceptable equivalent)
Peak 1 - 1.55 m-1
Peak 2 - 1.52 m-1
Peak 3 - 1.51 m-1

Zero Drift 0.02 m-1 PASS

Average 1.51 m-1
Turbo = 1.51 m-1 PASS

I've had major leaks in the past and had no issue sorting them out, usually the exhaust gives it away, did the front pipe inc flexi less than a year ago due to it splitting on the top and rasping horribly at low speed, this isn't doing anything like that...exhaust sounds normal.

That was my thought that the leak couldn't be that major given that the silencer produces a normal level of steam / smoke on first cold fire up...harsh stick down of the loud pedal = small puff of black smoke ala any diesel engine.
I know there was a small slit near the silencer, but I fixed that properly recently, other joints if they are leaking is nearly non existent (the joints are sealed with ultra high temp silicon, and exterior of joints was smeared with high temp also to avoid any pinhole type leaks...he told me "every joint has a leak of some sort..well they don't...I checked tonight)

I'm considering phoning his head office tomorrow to complain as I'm getting the feeling there has been more than a few things tacked on / judged far more harshly than they should have been. Do people think I would be justified in doing so?

A major leak of gasses must be exactly what the wording says, "major", this again is open to interpretation, however, all exhaust systems in perfect condition and working order have "one" or "two" if dual systems major leaks, that or those leaks are the tail pipe ends where the sample probe is inserted. Now although not recommended to momentarily check for a major leak in an exhaust system that may not present unreasonable levels of noise, because that is also possible, run the engine at idle and using the parm of your hand and a rag "maybe" seal off the tail pipe end where the exhaust probe is normally inserted, you should feel a build up of back pressure, as soon as you feel the build up, you have "NO Major Leak Present". You can now remove your hand and the rag. 

There's a process called an appeal which is open if your not happy with the result of an mot

As I have some up and coming commitments to my time (ill health within family) I just went and bought a replacement front pipe, just no time to stand and argue over semantics to be honest...old one had a few pin sized gaps in the outer braid so might have been blowing there...I'd personally have classed it as a minor rather than a major leak...manager from chain phoned me today, and I was going to take it to another centre for their view on it, but "stuff" cropped up as mentioned above, so stuck another flexi on it - found a klarius one on sale at ECP, seems better made than the last one I bought and about the same price...

Thanks for your advice...its appreciated.

front brakes stripped and rebuilt today, went to town cleaning sliders, guide pins etc, and regreasing everything, along with roughening the pads up (offside had been binding in the past)

Just rebuilt the rear last week before the mot, but going to redo it again tomorrow as I'm not 100% happy, noting a slight diff in temps after a run with several moderate brakings from 40 to 10. Front seems equal but offside rear is noticeably cooler than nearside rear, one side seems too cool and the other side too hot....could just be paint sticking the pads slightly, usually file the paint off the sliding edges, but might have missed one or more pads on the rear, easy enough checked, everything is clean and greased so should come apart easily enough.

Just maddening slightly to be shooting in the dark - "rear brake application uneven" isn't the most enlightening thing to read.

It's a great thought, and a great idea. I'm pretty sure those ideas or similar (plus hundreds more including tester training) were proposed when they were building the system. We've only just about got a working system now - I can't see any new and useful features being added in the foreseeable future. Besides, when they add or fix something, another two or more parts of the original, working system go wrong.

For me the cut down VSI Mk2 is old news Paul - I consider it as an already agreed update which is in the works. The new ideas i.e. having a sub-section only visible to testers and DVSA staff, photo and video uploads, etc were mainly what I meant.

The checksheets that you were so vocal about are there already (data logging free and approved by DVSA), the new VSI will be but don't ask me when.

you should of asked for an appeal form. DVSA testing standards are so low you would of undoubtedly had your appeal upheld. I had 2 DVSA examiners spend 90 minutes re-examining an inverted appeal. I was shocked when they declared it OK. When I asked if they were happy about the 3 missing (out of 8) body to chassis bolts, blank looks.... I sent it back up and showed them, Ahh, well, we don't tend to see many of this type of car was the DVSA examiners "excuse" Like to see me get away with that one after 3 hours labour on one test.