Insecure

Insecure means any looseness at the fixings were there should be none, i.e. headlamp bolted to the slam panel should not move, ball and socket broken causes the lamp to move is insecure.


Davidg 

In what you say there @excessive I understand where you are coming from, and I am glad I don't see that many Corsa B's anymore, in fact the last one I did was the other week, which had about two pages of fail items and about three pages of advisories, it had been very well repaired bonding plates to the floor panels instead of welding them

Anyone can ask VOSA in the right department in the know what the term insecure actually means, anyone can actually look it up in a dictionary, it all means the same thing really, looseness where there should be none.

Getting now to the Corsa headlamps, yes I have seen many lower securing clips insecure and the way I have treated them is this way;

Method of Inspection;

Check the vehicle is securely fitted with obligatory headlamps. (It says check them not how to)

Reason for rejection:

A missing, insecure or obviously incorrectly positioned obligatory headlamp.

So the question becomes, is a headlamp insecure when these lower clips are broken/detached?

What I do:

Check physically if the lamp can move by touching it and slightly rocking my hand on it, if the lower clips are detached/broken I record my finding of looseness on the hand written document I use from the VTS device. I check the headlamp aim and make an informed decision as to whether the horizontal beam pattern and the image break point are withing the specified ranges, i.e. 0.5% and 2.0%  and 2.0% and 0% for headlamps not more than 0.85 metre from the ramp platform the vehicle is tested on. I then check the security of the headlamps again while the beam tester is in place using my hand to see if the looseness of the lamp permits the beam pattern to move out of the tolerances required, if it does they fail for looseness, if it does not then I normally pass and advise, if the beam aim is out of tolerance anyway, then both fail.

The problems with passing and advising

An engineer from the old days had the training, common sense and understanding to know that a headlamp which was loose would require a repair service before the headlamp aim can be set to within the specified tolerances required for the examination. Today many on here think that common sense is not part of the mot test, which is a stupid idea to me, however when the headlamps are at the repairers, the repairers don't even have in most cases a beam tester, so repairs are flawed to start with, then the attitude arrives, its only headlamp aim it does not matter?

If the vehicle was presented to me first at reception of the Test Station, reading the documents and understanding what is written, which must be clear to the person receiving the message, is a must, (I will scan an example of a recent test I did later), then all information having been read must then be coordinated together to decide which advisories are linked to the fail items so that a correct price and repair can be established, then when the mot tester retests the vehicle the headlamps are either correctly aligned, or the tester can after repairs adjust the headlamps to the tolerances required.

In our VTS this does not happen, our reception is run by a car sales guy who looks at what quick turn around in money there is, and he even says to me that I am not supposed to check any items the car did not originally fail on, can you imagine the stress and pressure I am under with him?

Now if VOSA  at this point said to us that all lamps like this are a fail, I wonder what they would then say when they examine the lighting and signalling figures and realize that the fail criteria has doubled?

Davidg





 


 


 

Say the battery was in a tray that was about 1cm deep. There is nothing holding the battery down except the fact that the positive/negative wires are short enough to reasonably stop the battery lifting up and out. That would be a pass and advise?



This is what I've been doing when checking loose headlamps. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. I've had testers tell me that any movement should result in a fail and one tester telling me that they should only fail if there's a chance the headlamps will fall out.

David the MOT manual is not a English dictionary and not designed to advise on the definition of words used there in it. VOSA expect a tester to have an understanding of the language they use, and to be able to look up what they don't.

If you read VOSA's current Matters of Testing you will see that they have defined the insecure in there for the people that don't know.

Davidg

Thanks aylesburyjock. The reason I asked was because I had such a car in the other day. I did fail it but afterwards I started to wonder if perhaps I should of advised. Our test station had a visit from VOSA last month due to higher than average fail rates. It's made me question myself more than usual.

It was the VTS's overall fail rate that caused the visit. He did stop me to ask some questions but I wasn't on his list due to being too new a tester.

Vehicle and Operator Services Agency agency?? I see what they mean by expert davidg

The changes you mentioned above. I imagine they're the same ones I've been accused of making up by yourself and others?

To be fair davidg you are correct. Major changes are very possible for sure. We just need to wait and see mate.

I'm also very relieved you now understand where the only reliable information source actually is.....
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Yep I must've said it I remember being accused of making that up too

Thnks for confirming for mr g, I actually do appreciate that. Oh was the reason for the massive tyres post explained too?

Gaz, I'm entitled too gloat over a small "I told you so".

Good job I'm thick skinned and took no offense eh

Leave me to wallow in it a bit longer? don't ruin my moment on me birthday laa

PM'd