We need a smile so

In message , Eric Shune writes

LOL! You were lucky to escape a re-test fee.

Well, my SOH may be different from yours. But that sounds to me like a brilliantly witty and customer-friendly tease. We all get anxious about MOT outcomes, and your garage simply wanted to give you the good news. (It never actually failed, after all...!)

yes, the VT30 failure note states, Windscreen has a sticker or other obstruction encroaching into the swept area by more than 40mm outside zone A.

There is a strange twist to this story. I only put the thing in the car a week ago and I don't normally have anything hanging from the mirror. Now only last night I cleaned the car inside and out (a car will fly through an MOT when this is done) and I detached the smellie from the mirror and looked for another place to hang the thing but could not find anywhere suitable so I placed it back on the mirror :-) Bloody strange what.

Anyway, I am now driving an ILLEGAL motor............

Does driving an illegal motor invalidate the insurance? Could this be a clever ploy by DL :-)

Throw it away.

If your car smells bad enough enough to need air fresheners then just clean it!

It did not smell before I hung it up. It's been cleaned every couple of weeks since new in 1998. It's a non smoker, non animal, normally one occupant, vehicle. I just can't abide throwing unused things away so hung it where most people hang a smellie, on the mirror.

Anyway, I have now repositioned it, out of window eye line, on the indicator stub.

Now if they could make a smellie that has that NEW car smell, I think it would sell real well.

You can. Garages use it on "pre-owned" cars. There is evidence that such sprays are harmful though.

In message , Eric Shune writes

I have a smellie hanging on the hook over the rear door, you know - the one that reps hang their jackets on between appointments. (Sometimes a shirt as well).

In message , Mark writes

They certainly are! They can increase the price by about £500.

Perhaps a bit of both. My car is always returned after the MOT with the satnav detached from the front windscreen because they say that would fail the MOT. ?

hmmm, perhaps the rules should be made clearer to the test houses or a more flexible approach taken by the testers, as in your case.

Thinking on this most of us flip down the sun blind which also restricts viewing in that area. Had I left IT down when it went in for the test he would not have failed the car but just flipped it back up......well one would think so.

I have been unofficially informed (by a qualified tester) he probably failed it to keep up his failure quotas.

If you have something obscuring the windscreen then it should fail it's MOT. More importantly you should never drive the car like that.

What counts as "obscuring". Rear view mirror? Tax disc? Wiper blades? Torrential rain?

Is it defined somewhere...?