NCT Broke my car!

JodTT

Dean09 wrote: »

Two weeks ago a guy I know brought his 05 Aston Martin DB9 to be NCT'd (in the Ballymun centre). They failed it on advanced corrosion on the front brake lines. Now this guy is extremely particular with his car so he knew there was no problem with the pipes. He argued his case but was told basically to go away.

He immediately brought the car up to Aston Martin in belfast and asked them to check the pipes. They said there was a miniscule nit of surface rust on one of the pipes but its definately not a fail by a country mile. They took photographs and he got an official letter from them to state their opinion. He returned to the NCT and showed them but they still insisted they were right. They finally agreed to get the car inspected by an independant engineer (AA). The inspection had to be carried out in the test centre and under the supervision of NCT officials. The engineer said there was absolutely nothing wrong with any aspect of the car and it should be passed. The NCT officials were extremely pissed off but they had to pass it (without an apology)

The owner told me it was nothing to do with money but it was the principle of it all. He'd have no problem getting it repaired if it was genuinely damaged (as I said he's very particular and spares no expense)
At least he got a result!

Funny you mention advance corrosion on brake lines. My boyf recently had his car NCTed in Deansgrange. He drives a 99 Hyundai Accent. He was also told there was advance corrosion on the brake lines. My Dad is a mechanic and took a look at it, only to find that the brake lines on the car are made of copper, and therefore can't rust!!!! He's had plenty of experience with NCT guys and said you'd be arguing until you're blue in the face trying to explain this to the guys. In the end, he completely replaced the brake lines and it passed the second test! :rolleyes:

challengemaster

Voodoomelon wrote: »

Meh, you only hear the bad stories, not the thousands of good ones every week.

They're being paid to do a job the right way, so it's expected they'll do it right. Would you prefer we give them a round of applause every time they do it too?

manatoo

JodTT wrote: »

Funny you mention advance corrosion on brake lines. My boyf recently had his car NCTed in Deansgrange. He drives a 99 Hyundai Accent. He was also told there was advance corrosion on the brake lines. My Dad is a mechanic and took a look at it, only to find that the brake lines on the car are made of copper, and therefore can't rust!!!! He's had plenty of experience with NCT guys and said you'd be arguing until you're blue in the face trying to explain this to the guys. In the end, he completely replaced the brake lines and it passed the second test! :rolleyes:

I can go one better - I brought my ancient car in for NCT just before Christmas knowing it would fail but just putting it throught to see what needed doing. So the brakes are screeching, 2 of the tyres dont have the "E" rating, 2 had only about 40% thread left and the spare in the boot was flat! How did it get on? Failed on advanced brake line corrosion. No mention of the other blatantly obvious problems! Retest had to be taken by the 9th January

So after asking several mechanics to look at it all of which quoted starting prices of €300 for the work but none of which would actually take the job on...."oh the tank will have to come out to do that...you never know with these old yokes if it'll go back up"...and so on, I got down under it myself on the morning of the 9th, sanded the corrosion off the pipe and brought it for the test. Passed no problem. Total cost - €3.50 for a piece of emery cloth.

Glad she passed but it does beg the question of the effectiveness of the test....

YouTookMyName

NCT is just a money racket.

dr.fuzzenstein

manatoo wrote: »

I can go one better - I brought my ancient car in for NCT just before Christmas knowing it would fail but just putting it throught to see what needed doing. So the brakes are screeching, 2 of the tyres dont have the "E" rating, 2 had only about 40% thread left and the spare in the boot was flat! How did it get on? Failed on advanced brake line corrosion. No mention of the other blatantly obvious problems! Retest had to be taken by the 9th January

So after asking several mechanics to look at it all of which quoted starting prices of €300 for the work but none of which would actually take the job on...."oh the tank will have to come out to do that...you never know with these old yokes if it'll go back up"...and so on, I got down under it myself on the morning of the 9th, sanded the corrosion off the pipe and brought it for the test. Passed no problem. Total cost - €3.50 for a piece of emery cloth.

Glad she passed but it does beg the question of the effectiveness of the test....

Next time bring it back without doing anything to them, bet it'll pass just the same.
Heard of one guy, got failed on lights 3 times, every time brought it into another garage to have them refocused, no good, they even focused them downwards a bit, no good.
Brought it back, got tested in another lane, passed no problem.

manatoo

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Next time bring it back without doing anything to them, bet it'll pass just the same.
Heard of one guy, got failed on lights 3 times, every time brought it into another garage to have them refocused, no good, they even focused them downwards a bit, no good.
Brought it back, got tested in another lane, passed no problem.

+1. I've heard of people getting completely different reading on the brake test depending on which lane their car is tested in.

The funny thing was that the re-test dude was surprised that the orginial tester had failed the brake lines at all. He said "some of them are very fussy" has he passed me the NCT cert... doesn't say much for consistency!

Gabbo57

YouTookMyName wrote: »

NCT is just a money racket.

Care to elaborate?

phill106

Gabbo57 wrote: »

Care to elaborate?

it is a scheme to get money out of the motoring public.

Failing because your numberplate has a different font? Or because your factory spec indicators aren't orange enough?
YOu get more points for no nct then for being caught doing 200mph.
Which brings me up to the new tyre rating rules. If your car can go xxx miles per hour, then your tyres must be rated to that speed. We aren't allowed to drive that fast!

2qk4u

I put my Taxi in for the NCT last year with the clutch almost gone, first and third were hard to select and no reverse, only gave me trouble the day before the test so I decided to put it in anyway, only failed on two shocks and a drop link, nothing said about the clutch or the fact that you could not select reverse.
I have my NCT again tonight, lets see what happens this time round.

Voodoomelon

challengemaster wrote: »

They're being paid to do a job the right way, so it's expected they'll do it right. Would you prefer we give them a round of applause every time they do it too?

And i'm sure you work to 100% of your ability 100% of the time and have no complaints about getting paid for it.

Unless the NCT is entirely automated, some allowances are to be made. I'm not saying i'd be delighted with an obvious f-up, but they're few and far between.

Slidey

I always have to laugh when these threads pop up.

I am sure mistakes have been made but some of the stories that crop up are a bit unbelievable.

I'm a DoE tester and in 3 years the only things I have broken were a hubcap, a wire on a headlight plug (sorry to the boardsie that owned that van ) and a headlight (kinda)

The hubcaps were all left on the van and I took them off and we put them on the floor incase we get blamed if they fall off, I missed one and backed over it, The owner was told and it was replaced for him.

The other 2 happened when I was trying to focus lights as I was testing it.

john.west

^^^ To be fair the DOE guys do little bits and pieces like changing bulbs and that so you would perhaps expect such little mishaps to happen more often. NCT guys wont do any such things and some of the things Ive being reading about them says little for their competence but all the same would hardly surprise me.

manatoo wrote: »

+1. I've heard of people getting completely different reading on the brake test depending on which lane their car is tested in.

The funny thing was that the re-test dude was surprised that the orginial tester had failed the brake lines at all. He said "some of them are very fussy" has he passed me the NCT cert... doesn't say much for consistency!

I was discussing mantoos brake line problem with him not too long back after I had a thread going on this. I previously had the exact same problem and the exact same fix as mantoo sorted me out for retest also. It was the exact same section of hose in the exact same model of car....unbelieveable, you could hardly call it a one off slip up by NCT. The brake line they failed me on was absolutely sound, not even surface rust but tarnished slightly as it was a copper hose. When I was under the car sorting out this I noticed a fuel hose line thats almost ready to crumple away with the rust...I mean wheres the common sense in that...do these guys brains go into shut down mode when their on the job...are they failed mechanics or something? Mind you I think you paid enough for the emery cloth @ €3.50 mantoo, i only paid €0.50 for the piece I got:p

On the brake imbalance. I had to get retest done twice and got the brake test done each time (three times in total) Failed first time out with the imbalance on rear axle being well over the 30% fail point (forget the exact figure). So fitted my brake shoes and adjusted them, took the car back for retest and the imbalance was on rear axle was 6% and a pass. However, this time round I failed on the "corrosion" on the brake line (had actually failed on this first time out also but thought they were talking about a bracket nearer the wheel). Polished the correct piece of hose up like mantoo and took it back for retest only 4 or 5 days later. The brake test was redone and imbalance on rear axle was 24% but still a pass as it was below 30%. I didn't adjust the brakes in the slightest in the meantime and ensured the tyre pressures were the same in all wheels on both occassions before I went car. Car was in a different lane, so I'm guessing this does not say a whole lot for the calibration (or lack thereof) their equipment....the mind boggles sometimes.

Slidey

Brake imbalances can vary quite significantly on the same rollers. Wet tyres, not being perfectly straight in the rollers and the testers foot on the brake pedal can all affect the outcome of the reading.


If you have a vehicle with a borderline imbalance, a slow press of the brake may get it to pass whereas if you you press the pedal hard and fast it will more than likely fail

john.west

Slidey wrote: »

Brake imbalances can vary quite significantly on the same rollers. Wet tyres, not being perfectly straight in the rollers and the testers foot on the brake pedal can all affect the outcome of the reading.


If you have a vehicle with a borderline imbalance, a slow press of the brake may get it to pass whereas if you you press the pedal hard and fast it will more than likely fail

Fair enough Slidey, I appreciate that there will be a certain margain for error but 24% versus 6% with the exact same tyre pressures, less than 70 miles travelled in the interm and weather conditions being generally the same on both occassions just doesn't seem right to me at all?...Maybe Im totally out of touch though and I cant claim to be knowledgeable in this area. In fact I think the car may have initially failed the brake imbalance test on the last retest as he back-tracked onto the roller again, if that makes sense....thats just speculation on my part though.

Such differences surely call into question the credability of the brake imbalance test?. One would have to assume that there are many instances where cars that should fail end up passing and visa versa.

My own personal observations of the NCT would lead me to believe that they abide strictly by the manual without applying their own judgement or common sense. For example failing a slightly tarnished brake line for having "advanced corrosion" with the same car having a fuel line thats about to crumple away with the rust (must get that sorted actually;)). I can provide a few other examples from my own experience if need be.

Little Mickey

F*ck NCT

I've a horse outside

Tigger

Little Mickey wrote: »

F*ck NCT

I've a horse outside

2010 called : they want their meme back

Mc Love

Did the NCT before and when I got in the car after the test - the interior light was hanging down

Was easy to fix though

nogoodnamesleft

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

I havtn had any issues with any of my cars but my uncle is a panel beater that does a fair bit of Lotus work and had an Elise in a couple of months back that had been jacked up at the wrong points durign an NCT. broken fibreglass everywhere

Same thing happened my mates S2 Elise. caused a crack in the sideskirt on the passengers side in front of the rear wheel.

FunkyExige wrote: »

Funny i was going to post on this thread myself. That's the car my partner bought! Small world or what! I dont have pics at the moment but the damage to the sills was bad! It was before it was bought by us and the nct didn't give the guy anything and it wasn't a cheap fix either! Unreal they can get away with it. All they had to do was look at the manual to see the jacking points?! I think its unfair that if they dont know how to do something or open something etc that they can't just come and ask to be shown how it works. It's horrible having to take any car you love in those places

Small world.....I recon your partner bought a blue Elise S2 from the south in a place starting with K ;-)

Pulsating Star

nogoodnamesleft wrote: »

Same thing happened my mates S2 Elise. caused a crack in the sideskirt on the passengers side in front of the rear wheel.
QUOTE]

As the jacking points on fibreglass cars can be very specific and there are so few about I dont see as testers could be expected to know in all cases. It would be in the owners best interest to go through their locations with the tester beforehand as missing them can be so messy.

Viper_JB

Pulsating Star wrote: »

As the jacking points on fibreglass cars can be very specific and there are so few about I dont see as testers could be expected to know in all cases. It would be in the owners best interest to go through their locations with the tester beforehand as missing them can be so messy.

At the same time if I wasn't sure where to jack a car I'd ask or find out, what I wouldn't do is throw caution to the wind, and risk damaging the car for the space of time it takes to ask a question. But again no accountability means they do not give two sh!t's about other peoples property, personally I would be livid if this happened to me. Ignorance isn't an excuse.

BanzaiBk

The NCT actually fixed a bit of my car. The beam pattern on the driver's side was out by 5mm so the guy picked up a screwdriver, tightened some things and it passed.

Mongarra

Similar to post No. 4, a friend brought her car to NCT in Enniscorthy. When the tester told her it failed because the bonnet would not close she said it was closed before she brought it in. I had actually topped up oil and water the previous evening so knew the bonnet was fine. Tester would not admit he had damaged the car so she asked for the manager. He said it was her word against theirs so she had to have it fixed and retested. Garage said it was likely it had happened during test if it had been alright beforehand and it looked like the bonnet had been forced in an attempt to close it. Retest was a pass but no admission of guilt.

Orando Broom

Dean09 wrote: »

Two weeks ago a guy I know brought his 05 Aston Martin DB9 to be NCT'd (in the Ballymun centre). They failed it on advanced corrosion on the front brake lines. Now this guy is extremely particular with his car so he knew there was no problem with the pipes. He argued his case but was told basically to go away.

He immediately brought the car up to Aston Martin in belfast and asked them to check the pipes. They said there was a miniscule nit of surface rust on one of the pipes but its definately not a fail by a country mile. They took photographs and he got an official letter from them to state their opinion. He returned to the NCT and showed them but they still insisted they were right. They finally agreed to get the car inspected by an independant engineer (AA). The inspection had to be carried out in the test centre and under the supervision of NCT officials. The engineer said there was absolutely nothing wrong with any aspect of the car and it should be passed. The NCT officials were extremely pissed off but they had to pass it (without an apology)

The owner told me it was nothing to do with money but it was the principle of it all. He'd have no problem getting it repaired if it was genuinely damaged (as I said he's very particular and spares no expense)
At least he got a result!

Probably some warrior trying to stick it to an Aston Martin owner.

something to tell the lads down in the pub that he failed an 05 Aston Martin but his '99 ****box passed or some such. God the NCT. Some of the stuff pertaining to rust is scandalous.

nogoodnamesleft

Pulsating Star wrote: »

nogoodnamesleft wrote: »

Same thing happened my mates S2 Elise. caused a crack in the sideskirt on the passengers side in front of the rear wheel.
QUOTE]

As the jacking points on fibreglass cars can be very specific and there are so few about I dont see as testers could be expected to know in all cases. It would be in the owners best interest to go through their locations with the tester beforehand as missing them can be so messy.

Agreed but the Majority of Elises have nice big pictures of "Jack Here" on the underside of the body.+ some testers can have attitude if you instruct them "on how to do their job"

Pulsating Star

Viper_JB wrote: »

At the same time if I wasn't sure where to jack a car I'd ask or find out, what I wouldn't do is throw caution to the wind, and risk damaging the car for the space of time it takes to ask a question. But again no accountability means they do not give two sh!t's about other peoples property, personally I would be livid if this happened to me. Ignorance isn't an excuse.

I, on the other hand would rather put a fraction of the energy it takes to get livid into prevention especially if I held such a poor view of other peoples professionalism. IMHO if the owner of a vehicle knows there is a potential issue with testing their car, ie jacking points, AWD systems on rollers whatever and they can't be bothered to mention it , its Darwin award time.

nogoodnamesleft wrote: »

Pulsating Star wrote: »

Agreed but the Majority of Elises have nice big pictures of "Jack Here" on the underside of the body.+ some testers can have attitude if you instruct them "on how to do their job"

IIRC those pictures are just stickers which can fall off overtime.
If one was telling them how to do their job rather than advising them of a known issue then one should expect a negative reaction

BigEejit

[wtf]Yeah, its not the numpty who damaged the cars fault, it was the owners fault.[/wtf]

There are always people who avoid taking responsibility for their actions, in this case backed by their employer/the gubmint.

taintabird

Anan1 wrote: »

I've NCTd lots of cars, never had any problems. The only complaint i've ever heard personally (as opposed to on the internet) was a German tester telling a friends wife not to use her foglights on a clear day.

And rightly so its a pain in the a** following a twat that has their fog light on when there is no need blinding every one.

GeneHunt

My parents had a 1998 Peugeot 406 Turbo Diesel and in July 2002 they had the car tested in the NCT centre in Cahir, Co. Tipperary. It failed the test on the rear indicator bulbs not been amber enough! So my mother at the time drove the car to Clonmel, bought new amber coloured bulbs and had them fitted and returned to the NCT test centre in Cahir to have the visual retest on the car. However, before reaching Cahir the engine failed formula one style - One of the pistons decided to take a detour through the side wall of the engine block, destroying the engine with its departure! The car had travelled an estimated 20 miles that afternoon after the test. They were of the view that the engine had been over revved at the test centre, but the NCT centre did not want to know about the problem. The car had low enough mileage on the clock - can't remember the figures now, but it wasn't considered a factor at the time.
My parents first tried to get a second hand engine, but failed to locate one. In the end they had to replace the engine for a new one at the local Peugeot dealer, which took more longer than estimated at the time, all this delayed the cars’ return for its visual retest and it ended up missing the 28 day return, so it had to have a full retest again. They returned the car to the same test centre in Cahir (against my advice) because while they were looking for a replacement engine they heard a few more similar stories involving engine failures at the Cahir test centre. I can still remember my father being furious at the thought of the new engine getting tested and it didn’t even have 1000 miles done, they even tried to have the new engine exempt for that test, with no joy, the NCT centre wouldn’t have any of it – anyway, it passed its test.
I had a 1998 Peugeot 406 Turbo Diesel too at the same time and I had my car tested in April the following year at the NCT centre in the Fonthill, Clondalkin, Dublin 22. My car passed the test, however the rear indicators on my car were less amber that my parent car before they had their first test. My heart was in my month for that test and all NCT tests since, I wish we had a similar system to the Spanish, where they drive they own cars through the test...

Viper_JB

Pulsating Star wrote: »

I, on the other hand would rather put a fraction of the energy it takes to get livid into prevention especially if I held such a poor view of other peoples professionalism. IMHO if the owner of a vehicle knows there is a potential issue with testing their car, ie jacking points, AWD systems on rollers whatever and they can't be bothered to mention it , its Darwin award time.

I would say the owner would not be aware of a potential issue or a lack of common sense untill the damage has already been done, and I hold a poor view of their professionalism through a bad experience and through giving the testers the benefit of the doubt, I don't think it's too much to ask for a good under standing of cars and a little bit of common sense from someone who's job is to test cars.

Pulsating Star

Viper_JB wrote: »

I would say the owner would not be aware of a potential issue or a lack of common sense untill the damage has already been done, and I hold a poor view of their professionalism through a bad experience and through giving the testers the benefit of the doubt, I don't think it's too much to ask for a good under standing of cars and a little bit of common sense from someone who's job is to test cars.

I am sorry if I came accross as overly arguementative V JB. You are quite right in what you say and expect of course. Care and responsibility for others property when entrusted to them should be paramount and if they have any doubts, asking not guessing.