NCT fail

Stky10

GF brought my car for its NCT test today and it failed on a couple of points. I'm just wondering if anyone can clarify why/how?

(1) Handbrake - It says performance less than 16% is a fail. Yet the measured performance on mine is 18%. So I'm not sure why it failed?

(In the same section it says brake effort of less than 55% is a fail, mine measured 89%)

(2) Smoke (its a Focus TDi) - Turbo limit is 2.50/m. Mine measured 3.110/m with oil temperature 81 celsius. The guy there mentioned to her that it might need a service with new oil. Is that the likely cause/fix, or could it have just done with a vigorous drive down the motorway beforehand?.

When I bought it with perhaps 3k less miles on it than it has now, there was supposed to have a service been carried out on it, which would presumably have involved an oil change.

CiniO

With parking brake - did you look at imbalance?
Maybe nearside's braking force differs from offside braking force more then 50%.
In this case it's a fail.

mullingar

A good service and a good hard 3rd gear blast down the motorway to clear out any soot should do the trick.

Stky10

CiniO wrote: »

With parking brake - did you look at imbalance?
Maybe nearside's braking force differs from offside braking force more then 50%.
In this case it's a fail.

Actually I've just figured it out now.

Its actually in the section above what I thought it was that it failed. Its just the printout isn't clear in that it looks like that section passed and the section below that failed. The parking brake nearside is 0.78 kN, and offside is 1.6kN, which is an imbalance of 51% and anything above 50% is a fail.

Would this be a big job to fix this, or it should be a relatively quick fix?.

keli

So you just need new handbrake pads, cheap enough.

With regards to the smoke, try some dipetane (you can get it in most petrol stations). You just put a bit in with a full tank of diesel and give the car a hard drive before your retest

CiniO

Stky10 wrote: »

Actually I've just figured it out now.

Its actually in the section above what I thought it was that it failed. Its just the printout isn't clear in that it looks like that section passed and the section below that failed. The parking brake nearside is 0.78 kN, and offside is 1.6kN, which is an imbalance of 51% and anything above 50% is a fail.

Would this be a big job to fix this, or it should be a relatively quick fix?.

Should be easy enough.
Maybe you need a new handbrake cable.
Maybe new rear brake pads.

Both are not too much hassle to change.

mullingar

+1 as Cinio said

But might just need adjusting.

@op, what was the brake result for the rear brakes?

bbam

Stky10 wrote: »

(2) Smoke (its a Focus TDi) - Turbo limit is 2.50/m. Mine measured 3.110/m with oil temperature 81 celsius. The guy there mentioned to her that it might need a service with new oil. Is that the likely cause/fix, or could it have just done with a vigorous drive down the motorway beforehand?.

Not that I would suggest you do it..... but I hear if you run the tank well down, put in 10litres of kerosene it will pass the smoke emmissions... Then top up with diesel once the test is done...

Stky10

mullingar wrote: »

@op, what was the brake result for the rear brakes?

Rear axle:
Break effort: Nearside 2.000kN, Offside 1.820kN,
Ovality Nearside 42%, Offside 40%

Imbalance 9% (above 30% is a fail)

mullingar

Handbrake cable needs looking at;)

Pkiernan

bbam wrote: »

Not that I would suggest you do it..... but I hear if you run the tank well down, put in 10litres of kerosene it will pass the smoke emmissions... Then top up with diesel once the test is done...

Mechanical issues aside, if Customs dip a tank and find kerosene (which is usually marked) they will issue a €1500 fine.

Stky10

Stky10 wrote: »

Rear axle:
Break effort: Nearside 2.000kN, Offside 1.820kN,
Ovality Nearside 42%, Offside 40%

Imbalance 9% (above 30% is a fail)

Ok, I need to revive this thread from the dead.

I'm out of the country at the moment, so the girlfriend brought the car to the local mechanic who worked on it for a few days. For the handbrake issue he just fiddled at the brakes (rather than the handbrake cable) for a while, said everything is alright with it etc.

It did the retest today, and while it passed everything else this time, it failed the handbrake test again, this time worse than the last time. The girlfriend now wants to bring it back to said mechanic to work on again. I'm thinking that its not worth it based on (a) I don't think he has a clue (b) I don't think he has the equipment to do a test to verify any changes made. So he could work away on it again for a while and be no surer that it would pass the next time than he was this time.

So I'm wondering is it worth bringing to a main dealer?. Would they normally have the necessary equipment to make these measurements after making a change?.

argosy2006

when ever i had handbrake fail i remove rear drums to take a look, pads are fine,, they will rarely wear out, my car is 15 years old, so it usually its a build up of brake dust,
clean out dust,get wet cloth to wipe it all out ,
clean inside drum where pad is pulling, clean pads,then give them a rub with sand paper and drum too.make sure its all dry when u put it back together
passed easy,will hold car on steepest of hills, and its big heavy car,
cost to repair,. zero.
as for your emmisions, more to do with fuel than oil, change fuel and air filter, add a diesel treatment, if your oil was changed no need to change again,

Stky10

argosy2006 wrote: »

when ever i had handbrake fail i remove rear drums to take a look, pads are fine,, they will rarely wear out, my car is 15 years old, so it usually its a build up of brake dust,
clean out dust,get wet cloth to wipe it all out ,
clean inside drum where pad is pulling, clean pads,then give them a rub with sand paper and drum too.make sure its all dry when u put it back together
passed easy,will hold car on steepest of hills, and its big heavy car,
cost to repair,. zero.
as for your emmisions, more to do with fuel than oil, change fuel and air filter, add a diesel treatment, if your oil was changed no need to change again,

Well the emissions test passed this time. Its no longer an issue. The only issue is with the handbrake test.

As for cleaning out the dust, and cleaning the pads, I presume thats what the mechanic did, but it wasn't sufficient.

Stky10

Here's what failed