Pissing Cars

That's because your coolant (and indeed many other things that concern mechanical running order) is not relevant to the MOT test....an MOT certificate is not a certificate of good mechanical order, it's to do with the car being to a certain standard of 'roadwortiness' and that it's emissions are not excessive.

Headlights have to be at a certain angle, they are part of the MOT test and I would guess that one or more of your clips was damaged and the angle of the lights was not correct as a result - this can fail an MOT.

Checking the coolant is the responsibility of the driver, and would be pointed out at the time of a Service at the very least. And in fairness to have NO coolant at all is a pretty big achievement (you may have a leak) and would have been noticibly low way before your MOT! By comparison i have had my car a year and the coolant level has bearly moved from the 'max' line! And its done 136000 miles!

the new system sucks.

cause it goes thru, on a computer LIVE as they do it, so for example, a MOT inspector to walk into the garage, check the computer, see what part they're checking and go see that they're actually doing it. it's to cut down on fraud. you also need the V5.

they can't do a 'free re-test if u get the work done with us' type affair anymore - if it fails, it's got to be completely RE-TESTED. hence u probably got charged for 2 tests plus the headlight re-alignment.

it sucks.

driving isn't an option for some people, like the green crew are trying to convince people of.

When I got mine done it failed on a bulb, which he replaced, and then continued with the test.

I did not pay any extra, but I got a red sheet aswell as a green (and a yellow advisory page)

So i suppose it depends what it fails on....a bulb is hardly major so I was probably lucky there.

why not get it checked out before you actually go to the MOT? That would save money i would have thought!!

My mechanic fixes anything that's wrong while he's doing the MOT so my car passes every time

The fact that it's only done 1800 miles since last MOT helps though... my car's in amazing condition. not that i'm smug or anything...