Bent MOT

One story I can tell you regarding poor testing. I've had the same VE for a few years now and I like to think we've got to know each other fairly well. Oh I admit the VE and Tester relationship still stands, exactly as it should, but after the official business we usually find time for a short chat. Once the subject of other local testing stations came up and I was asked if there were any that in my limited knowledge I might not care for much. I admit I did name one because I'd ended up servicing a few cars they had tested and I was fairly unimpressed. The VE replied that all he knew was that they did seem to test an awful lot of cars in a day. This particular station did just about all the tests for local car dealers (those that didn't have their own facilities anyway) but within a month or so all the dealers were going elsewhere. Something happened, nobody got banned or anything like that, but I believe something was said. The moral of all this is things do get done, maybe behind the scenes as it were, but they do get done. So if you have a concern don't be too shy about telling it. If there is nothing wrong then nothing will happen. Oh I know how "snitching" goes against the grain, it does with me to but some of the cars these people had tested that I was servicing six months later simply can't have been OK when tested. And, yes, I do know that's too late to do anything and, yes, I do blame the dealers selling them as well.

Another moral is that if I can possibly get out of it I don't test cars for used car dealers. It never ends well in my experience! But I can't refuse to test if asked but they do not get any "favours"! On the other hand I do get a little pee'd off with site inspections. Once I was having a quiet day and took the chance to move tools around and generally clean up. I was told that the workshop was untidy, with tools all over the place. Ah well.