Nct failure - suspension strut loose

bikki

Hi all

I failed my nct this morning as my front left wheel suspension strut was loose. Can someone tell me is this serious? is just a matter of the garage tightening it? Im taking to the garage friday so I just want to know what to expect cost wise/is it a big job?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Gerry

The nct tester should have provided you with a little more info. The strut bolts to the hub, to a mounting in the engine bay ( a round protrusion called a strut tower ), and to the steering rack. If the strut becomes detached from any of its mountings, it would be highly dangerous.
The ncts have the option of declaring that a vehicle is too dangerous to drive, presumably they did not say that. Its hard to say much without seeing it. If you can provide any more info, that would help people to help you. Do you notice more noise from that side of the car when going over bumps?

Henry Ford III

If it's loose then tighten it back up again.

Sounds rather easy tbh.

bikki

Gerry,thanks for the response. No he didnt say much more than that. Even the printed document with the breakdown of the result just says: suspension strut loose. It is not marked as dangerous. Nope, there are no noises when going over bumps.

Henry, i really hope its just something simple like that!

Gonna give the garage a ring now and see what they say.

bikki

so just thought id update ye on this....took yesterday of work to bring car to garage...was there over an hour while mechanic checked it out...and the result....nothing was wrong with my "strut"

The mechanic even brought it up to another garage where his friend works he was a ford mechanis for years etc..and he also confirmed that nothing was wrong...

so now i gotta go through the appeal process....has anyone ever had any luck with this??? is it another waste of time....

Borderfox

The appeals process is run by the NCT crowd, I had the same problem twice with a failure on my car, they told me I had rust on a brake line which when I inspected it with my mechanic turned out to be muck. I had boody murder with the manager and didn't get anywhere with that. If you see two long black lines outside the ballymun test centre that was me leaving. In future if they say anything is wrong with a visual check then ask for the manager and get him to inspect the car with yourself in tow. If its a computer check ask to see the calibration certificate for the machine in question. Sorry to hear that bikki, maybe if you clean the part with a steam cleaner that might satisfy them considering they dont know what they are looking at?

SnoopyDogDog

i was failed for having a pin misssing, that the garage forgot to put back in. this pin is only safety and wasn't going to make a whole lot of difference. I had war with the guy, as it was last day before i would have to do the full test again (which i wasn't going to pass - emmission!). anyway, my point is, this was in Ballymun as well. are they a nightmare everywhere or is it just this crowd in Ballymun?

Borderfox

I tried Fonthill and Ballymun and both are a shower of.......................

bikki

thanks for the reply guys...

i had mine in fonthill, the tester was very nice he explained the whole result sheet to me. and i was impressed with whole operation up there...so i didnt leave too upset...
its just the fact that i had taken yesterday of work for nothing...the guys in the garage with very informative, showing me what the strut was and comparing it with other cars as my car is a ford...the ford strut is slightly different to most cars. and i wasted their time...

im just waiting for the appeal form to arrive in the post and im going to get a letter from the garage to say it was fine....

leon8v

Had a similar experience with them in Ballymun last year. A friend brought her car in and they failed it on a rusty brake line like above which wasnt actually rusty and one headlight out on alignment . But I just made a new brake line for her anyway to shut them up. But it turned out that the headlight couldnt be adjusted any more so we got a new one and brought it back the very next day to which the said it was now fine but the other headlight which had been fine the previous day was now not passing as it was not lined up per their machine. That headlight had been fine the day before, hadnt been touched, car had been hardly driven so couldnt have been knocked out of line. A lot of screaming and shouting later and it was passed.

SnoopyDogDog

the theory behind the nct is a good one, trying to give car buyers (with no clue of cars) an idea of how the car might be - ie if it just passed the nct.

unfortunately it is not working that way. problem 1 i have noticed is that there are some rust buckets out there with nct certs - how did they get to pass? this brings me to my main point - the nct testing is privately owned, which mean profit, profit, profit, by any means! ie making people to a restest over and over.

with regards the lights, should they not have only tested the one which needed to be fixed? in fairness, with the lights they work together so it was spotted without looking for it, but regards other problems you may have gotten away with on the first test, they can't use that on a retest because they should only be looking for what failed

leon8v

SnoopyDogDog wrote:

with regards the lights, should they not have only tested the one which needed to be fixed? in fairness, with the lights they work together so it was spotted without looking for it, but regards other problems you may have gotten away with on the first test, they can't use that on a retest because they should only be looking for what failed

The problem really was that the passenger side light which had passed the day before failed less than 24hours later on a different Lane in the NCT centre without being touched!! Doesnt add up!!!

old boy

in theory they are only supposed to check the failed part, some say the tester gets 10% of each retest paid twice yearly june and december, this was hammered out at the last agreement,