Engineer Report for DOE?

cormie · 25-11-2014 11:13pm #1

Has anyone ever come across a request to get an engineers report on a DOE failure? Had a fail on a rusted chassis today and was told it would need to be welded and that I'd need an engineers report for it to be able to pass the DOE.

I brought it to a mechanic and he said another customer of his had the same issue on a DOE failure and the mechanic rang the DOE place for his customer, arguing that the customer shouldn't need the engineers report and that it should be up to the DOE centre to determine the safety of it and that them requesting an engineers report is just them covering their ass when they should be able to assess it

The DOE centre he rang then agreed that they wouldn't need the engineers report.

So is this actually a fair request from a DOE centre, or are they just covering their ass and I shouldn't be required to get one at all?

Any feedback appreciated

kay 9 · 26-11-2014 1:55am

First I heard of such madness. What kind of doe is it if they need an engineer to check stuff lol. Sure next they be sending ya to the main stealers for a full service. If this is a requirement it's crazy.

Kevin McCloud · 26-11-2014 1:58am

Came across this before, engineers report was wanted, jeep was plated, welded and schutz and sent to another test centre and passed.

cormie · 26-11-2014 6:56am

That's exactly how the mechanic described the job to me Kevin. What DOE centre requested the engineers report originally do you remember?

I think I'll give the main DOE line a ring and see what they say about it. Would of course prefer to just have it retested and not pay for the full test again so if I can get them to retest it and let them decide whether it's safe, as I thought was their job, without an engineers report, that's the ideal.

bucketybuck · 26-11-2014 9:34am

DOE centres frequently will require engineer reports for modifications to vehicles, for example if a chassis has been lengthened or if a crane has been fitted to the back.

If a chassis is extremely badly rusted there is a safety issue, and if an engineer/mechanic is prepared to try and repair a chassis they should also be prepared to stand over their work and accept the consequences should the repair fail and somebody gets hurt.

Personally I have no problem with DOE centres looking for engineer certs, its lazy thinking to assume that they are the ones who should be signing off on some dodgy welding job. How are they supposed to judge the structural integrity of a welding job in a 15/20 minute visual inspection?

4odh4n · 26-11-2014 10:17am

I was requested for an engineers report for DOE for some welding that i done to a jeep i had a few years ago, in fairness it was a fair chunk of chassis that ended up being replaced near were rear suspension connected. paid €150 for the privilage and got a 5-6 page report with pictures etc, when i had gone that far i winged a copy off to the insurance aswell just incase there was ever an accident and it was picked up on.

cormie · 27-11-2014 2:17pm

bucketybuck wrote: »

DOE centres frequently will require engineer reports for modifications to vehicles, for example if a chassis has been lengthened or if a crane has been fitted to the back.

If a chassis is extremely badly rusted there is a safety issue, and if an engineer/mechanic is prepared to try and repair a chassis they should also be prepared to stand over their work and accept the consequences should the repair fail and somebody gets hurt.

Personally I have no problem with DOE centres looking for engineer certs, its lazy thinking to assume that they are the ones who should be signing off on some dodgy welding job. How are they supposed to judge the structural integrity of a welding job in a 15/20 minute visual inspection?

I see where you're coming from, but if the purpose of the DOE is to determine the safety of the vehicle, then I would have thought whoever is carrying out the testing would be qualified to determine the quality of the job done instead of needing a third party involved too. At €111 I think it is for what's typically a 30/40 minute test, you're talking 12 tests in an 8 hour work day with a taking of €1,300. I know there's huge costs associated with that, but I thought it would have covered this too.

4odh4n wrote: »

I was requested for an engineers report for DOE for some welding that i done to a jeep i had a few years ago, in fairness it was a fair chunk of chassis that ended up being replaced near were rear suspension connected. paid €150 for the privilage and got a 5-6 page report with pictures etc, when i had gone that far i winged a copy off to the insurance aswell just incase there was ever an accident and it was picked up on.

Any chance you can remember where you got it for €150 please? I think they were telling me it's probably around €200.

bucketybuck · 27-11-2014 2:32pm

cormie wrote: »

I see where you're coming from, but if the purpose of the DOE is to determine the safety of the vehicle, then I would have thought whoever is carrying out the testing would be qualified to determine the quality of the job done instead of needing a third party involved too.

That has to be within reason though, and I don't think structural repairs should be covered by that. Its one thing to determine if a wishbone bush is worn or if an exhaust pipe is loose, quite another to look at a retrofitted towbar and visually judge that its mounting point is fit to carry X ton of weight. Or to look at a mess of welding and sheet metal bolted to the chassis and judge that it is thick enough steel to carry the vehicle weight. There are specialist engineering companies that will not sign off on other peoples work for the same reason, the consequences are too severe should they judge it wrong. You can't expect the guy doing a 20 minute visual check to be able to do so.

I run a main commercial dealership, from time to time we get asked to provide engineer reports for bodywork, say for example a crane or fuel tanker fitted to the back of a 7.5 tonner. We always refuse to do it, and it doesn't matter if we have a week to spend looking at it, we are the experts in our brand but we cannot be certain of bodywork that some other company has done. It might look fine but how do we stress test it? And if it falls off and crushes somebody we are liable for it.

The testers should be qualified to assess unmodified components of vehicles, but modifications, such as replating a rusted chassis, I can sympathise if they don't feel qualified to assess those.

4odh4n · 27-11-2014 3:44pm

cormie wrote: »

Any chance you can remember where you got it for €150 please? I think they were telling me it's probably around €200.

I am in Donegal!, and it must be at least 5 years ago since i got the report done, so could possibly be around the 200 mark if went looking now! cant remember the guys name, but pretty sure i could find the report/name if you are in this part of the world...

demanufactured · 27-11-2014 4:31pm

All CVRT centres are required by the RSa to upload an engineers report to the RSa database if there has been chassis repair work done , modification reports are similer.

cormie · 27-11-2014 5:18pm

Thanks for the input everyone. Bucketybuck, you're making too much sense there, how am I meant to argue with that! :mad: :pac:

Engineer Report for DOE?

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