phazer
09-05-09, 03:37 PM
Well today was time to MOT the Nova, it expired last month but didn't get chance to take it for one reason or another.
Thanks to a right monkey who doesn't know his MOT from his elbow I didn't even get as far as a test - he stopped it at the emissions stage.
I saw him doing a cat test, rev'd it to 7k for about 5 minutes, presumably to heat up the non existant cat....then messed about revving the tits off it for ages. I could see he couldn't get all three boxes on the computer to go green.
He called me out and told me it failed on emissions, I asked what he'd tested it as - he told me it's all done on engine number (i.e code), I asked him which Nova engine he thought he was testing then. Showed me the book and pointed to 'C16SE'. I said errmm it doesn't have a Nova engine, I've never had a cat test here or at vauxhall and this engine has been in for at least 5 years. After much blabbing about how VOSA were cracking down on modified cars and that he can't get his own Subarau through an mot he found the 'right' engine in the book, yup a C16XE and he'd checked the code on the head too. So again I said nope it's an X16XE, pointed to it and he took this to mean he tests the car as a 1995 Corsa...what a knob. Off he went to phone Vosa...meanwhile he's left the gas analyser running so I have a look and get the following values:
CO = 0.6
HC = 112
Lambda 0.99-1.01
So it's 0.3 on CO from passing a cat test anyway and will piss a standard test.
So he comes back and tells me that he's got to stop the test and I've got to get proof of what the engine came out of and what year it is....so I pointed out that the engine is newer than the car so firstly its whichever is older and that if he looked at the flow chart he'd see that a car with an engine in that Vauxhall didn't fit cannot be tested under the tightest emissions.
Then he tells me that the rules changed last August and that the flow chart was no longer valid.
I didn't have to pay which was a bonus as when I got home I phoned Vosa and they pretty much laughed at what he'd said. :roll:
So, if you've got a post august 92 Nova and you fit an engine that Vauxhall never manufacturered the car with then it can only ever have the fall back basic emissions test regardless of whether it had a cat at the factory, does now or otherwise- as I've always said.
The rules ain't changed and the 'new' MOT book still has the flow diagram. Vosa told me he needed to read his testers manual lol
I rang the guy and told him what VOSA had said and his reply? 'Well they told me different, come back down and if they've told me wrong then I'll make a complaint'. I told him I can't drive willy nilly with an expired MOT to which he said 'oh yeaaah'. Funk me what a total knobber.
Anyway rant over...good news is the brake test was ok (I changed the lines over xmas), just a rush to get ready for Swad next week end now :(
Thanks to a right monkey who doesn't know his MOT from his elbow I didn't even get as far as a test - he stopped it at the emissions stage.
I saw him doing a cat test, rev'd it to 7k for about 5 minutes, presumably to heat up the non existant cat....then messed about revving the tits off it for ages. I could see he couldn't get all three boxes on the computer to go green.
He called me out and told me it failed on emissions, I asked what he'd tested it as - he told me it's all done on engine number (i.e code), I asked him which Nova engine he thought he was testing then. Showed me the book and pointed to 'C16SE'. I said errmm it doesn't have a Nova engine, I've never had a cat test here or at vauxhall and this engine has been in for at least 5 years. After much blabbing about how VOSA were cracking down on modified cars and that he can't get his own Subarau through an mot he found the 'right' engine in the book, yup a C16XE and he'd checked the code on the head too. So again I said nope it's an X16XE, pointed to it and he took this to mean he tests the car as a 1995 Corsa...what a knob. Off he went to phone Vosa...meanwhile he's left the gas analyser running so I have a look and get the following values:
CO = 0.6
HC = 112
Lambda 0.99-1.01
So it's 0.3 on CO from passing a cat test anyway and will piss a standard test.
So he comes back and tells me that he's got to stop the test and I've got to get proof of what the engine came out of and what year it is....so I pointed out that the engine is newer than the car so firstly its whichever is older and that if he looked at the flow chart he'd see that a car with an engine in that Vauxhall didn't fit cannot be tested under the tightest emissions.
Then he tells me that the rules changed last August and that the flow chart was no longer valid.
I didn't have to pay which was a bonus as when I got home I phoned Vosa and they pretty much laughed at what he'd said. :roll:
So, if you've got a post august 92 Nova and you fit an engine that Vauxhall never manufacturered the car with then it can only ever have the fall back basic emissions test regardless of whether it had a cat at the factory, does now or otherwise- as I've always said.
The rules ain't changed and the 'new' MOT book still has the flow diagram. Vosa told me he needed to read his testers manual lol
I rang the guy and told him what VOSA had said and his reply? 'Well they told me different, come back down and if they've told me wrong then I'll make a complaint'. I told him I can't drive willy nilly with an expired MOT to which he said 'oh yeaaah'. Funk me what a total knobber.
Anyway rant over...good news is the brake test was ok (I changed the lines over xmas), just a rush to get ready for Swad next week end now :(