Garage MOTs fail to spot basic faults, says report

According to a survey by consumer magazine Which?, MOT tests, which are carried out by Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa) accredited testing garages, are failing to spot basic faults on vehicles.

An undercover investigation conducted by the magazine found that some garages appointed to carry out MOT tests were often not keeping unsafe cars off the road - eight of the 36 garages visited passed faulty vehicles as roadworthy.

Helen Parker, Editor of Which?, said: "The results of our investigation couldn't be more clear cut - cars which should obviously have failed the MOT are getting through.

"Vosa needs to tackle the problem urgently. It must find a way to conduct more convincing research and stop incompetent mechanics from vetting the nation's cars."

In the survey Which? anonymously bought six second-hand cars between three and 10 years old, each with a valid MOT certificate. Experts then introduced a variety of faults on the cars all of which should have been failed on between one and four specific MOT testing points.

During August and September 2003, researchers took each of the six cars to six different test garages to examine the thoroughness of their MOT testing.

According to Which? the main findings of the survey were:

• only eight of the 36 tests were carried out correctly. Though this was an improvement on the last time Which? investigated MOTs in 1997, when only two garages out of 36 gave correct tests
• eight garages passed the cars - a considerably worse than the situation in 1997, when only two testers incorrectly passed the cars
• the remaining 20 garages failed the cars, but for the wrong reasons. They either missed real failure points or failed the car on the more minor points, which they should simply have warned about

Which? warned that an incorrect MOT can result in real problems further down the line - at best, it'll be an inconvenience; at worst, it could have serious safety implications.

Since last year's reorganisation of the Department of Transport's agency functions, Vosa has responsibility for the effectiveness on the Vehicle Inspectorate division's MOT regime.

According to Which?, while Vosa does carry out undercover research, it tests garages using cars which have no defects - the Road Traffic Act prohibits Vosa researchers from driving faulty cars.

But Which? has called for more realistic tests to be considered in an effort to find out how well garage mechanics spot actual defects.

Vosa is currently in the process of implementing a computer system to link up test centres, which it says will allow closer monitoring of MOTs at the testing garages.

(SP)