Rod

Quite simply … Advisories are Advisories

Your vehicle has passed a Test, and you have been advised of some observations.

Whatever the young lady thought … any work is at your discretion, not hers.

MichaelG.

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P.S.  ___ regarding brake pad wear: It will depend to some extent upon the vehicle and your driving style … but I can tell you from personal experience [decades ago] that when the last thin layer of a pad lets go, it is quite scary !

Since that time, I have been very grateful for the presence of warning lights for pad wear, and always heed their warning.

Advisories are to promote work for the garage. My brother in law used to insist on taking his car (over 10 years old) to the main dealer for its MOT. Every year it came back with advisories, and he actually considered getting rid of it. I asked him to go back and see if the advisories he got in one year were still there the next year. Nope. Clearly these incipient faults had healed themselves. He now takes his car to a family run independent, no further issues. Test stations should not be allowed to do repairs, this would remove the temptation to exaggerate issues. I’d go further and have them government run, but perhaps recent government fiascos mean that perhaps isn’t too good an idea

Four years ago I bought a two year old car from a main dealer.

Part of the deal was that they would provide free MOTs for the life of the car together with a dicounted serviceing charge.

I took them up in the offer when the first MOT was due and the car passed the MOT but two “advisories” were noted.

The first was that two tyres were “damaged on the sidewalls”, even though the (very minor) tyre damage had existed when they sold the car to me and the second “excess wear in the brake pedal linkage”. I requested that the MOT technician point out where the excess wear was located but he declined to do so. After the resulting discord I then took the car to my usual MOT station, showed them the test certificate and asked them to do the job again. They passed it without any advisories.

Afterwards I spoke to the MOT tester who said that he was unable to detect any wear whatsoever in the brake pedal linkage and that the tyre damage was to the “guard bands” and did not affect the integrity of the tyre in any way. I should explain that the MOT service I usually use is part of a large tyre specialist company.

He was of the opinion that the main dealer offered the free MOTs as part of a guise to lure customers back to the garage in order that they could generate further business on the back of these “advisories”.

Conclusion – ignore any advisories unless you’ve established independently (or via your own common sense) that there may be a potential problem in the future.

I once went for an MOT test and the examiner questioned by saying ” you only did 600 miles last year”  I know I said  I am sorry, I got lost.

Ill get me coat,

According to the AA the test takes about an hour. They need a bit of kit and a building, but that kit will be in constant use, so £55 doesn’t sound bad to me

On 12 January 2024 at 18:01 duncan webster 1 Said:

According to the AA the test takes about an hour. They need a bit of kit and a building, but that kit will be in constant use, so £55 doesn’t sound bad to me

There are MOT only centres, but I think there’s a VOSA set maximum price. My local garage charges me £35, knowing that I’ll be doing any repairs.

As for the OP’s advisories; they’re handy things to know so further wear/damage can be monitored. Broken coil springs are a common problem on modern cars, and them rusting because the powder coating has failed is just one of the causes.

Other reasons for advisories are because the examiner isn’t allowed to dismantle anything to inspect it properly. Sill covers fitted is MOT speak for these are always rusted enough to fail, but aren’t visible.

No professional is afraid of their work being inspected by somebody competent and experienced, but that’s often not the case for DIYers. And the quality of a lot of DIY work, including inspections, leaves a lot to be desired.

On 12 January 2024 at 16:02 Alan Jackson Said:

I once went for an MOT test and the examiner questioned by saying ” you only did 600 miles last year”  I know I said  I am sorry, I got lost.

Ill get me coat,

My local garage man in Portsmouth, who I have been patronising for over twenty years and is utterly honest and reliable, told me that one of his elderly customers brought his car in for an MOT and it was only showing an extra 300 miles.  When they asked him if it was correct he thought a bit and said “I should think so, I’ve been to Winchester twice”.

The same garage gives me an advisory at each MOT for corroded brake pipes, and has done so for several years.  Each year they tell me they have daubed them with used engine oil and will let me know if they ever get any worse.

George

Are advisories recorded so that a tester can see was advised the previous year?

Peter

Almost afraid to drive it away from the MOT testing station when I saw the advisory that the inside of the front bumper on my 23 year old Landrover Defender was showing signs of corrosion on the inner face of the front bumper.

I guess that if I don’t do something about it I may need to face up to its replacement in around 20-30 years time.

Probably around the time that it needs its third replacement chassis!

With a good part of my working life having been spent interpreting ‘Weasel Words’ … I would just mention the [convenient?] ambiguity of ‘Advisory’

My belief is that the intention was for the word to simply mean that the tester was advising the client of something they had noticed, but which which did not constitute a failure at the time of testing.

It is a small, but potentially lucrative, leap to interpret it as meaning “you are advised to get that done”

Advice from other ‘expert’ sources may be honourable expressions of concern, or not … but the MOT test is passed or failed at a moment in time.

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ Here’s some light background-reading:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mot-manuals-and-special-notices

I think the main problem with MOT centres adding random “advisories” to the test results arises from the fact that most MOT test centres are part of garages.

Here, in France, we have the MOT equivalent (Control Technique) required at two yearly intervals.  The test centres are independent and do nothing other than the test.  The cost is fixed at 80 euros, so £34/year.  The certificate has advisories marked but they make no financial gain my noting them.

Russell

Dear All,

I am more into vehicles, both heavy and light, rather than Model Engineering.  I am on the forum for the machining chit chat etc.  I admire the quality of contributions and the wide range of knowledge behind them.

I think that advisories are very good but bent MOT stations are not.  Bent because of the problems noted or bent because some will issue a ‘trade friendly’ MOT without any advisories.

On the rusty coil springs, that will be what DVSA call for.  I always get advisories for that.

On my last MOT on my Discovery, I had advisories for a swivel ball joint on the front axle.  Just a little bit of play.  I have now got the parts in stock and can plan to do the job at a convenient time.  Likewise, the rear props shaft rubber doughnut.  In stock and waiting to be fitted.

It is quite useful reading the history of the advisories especially with a S/H car and mysteriously they have disappeared but it is clear that no relevant repairs have been undertaken.

John