There are good points at times, notably when you get a much more knowledgeable customer than all of the staff there trying to intimidate the tester/staff by arguing the decision of failure, they try all their ficticious knowledge, compare to other examples and so-on. In this situation after they have proved beyond all reasonable doubt that they know very little, you introduce them to the complaints process on the government poster that the centre is obliged to have on display. Advise them of the process and reinforce the fact that the vehicle is remaining as "Failed" and that DVSA will require the vehicle to be presented at a centre of their choice, the vehicle must remain in the presented state at point of failure and cannot be driven until it shows a "Pass" If for any reason the fail is proven to be legitimate, the customer will have to leave the vehicle untested until such time as repairs are completed and re-test shows a "Pass"
If for any reason the DVSA find the fail as unjustified, they will demand the original tester be present to justify his reason for the fail. In this situation, the tester and his AEDM will be put through the mill and possibly awarded points against his tester profile.
Either way, the vehicle may be off the road for a time for this exercise to be completed, so if the argument is to do with tyre tread 3/4 rule or brake pads below limit, it may well simply be a case of just accept the judgement of the original tester, have the repairs completed and drive away the same day SAFELY !
I've been threatened with complaints to DVSA in the past from full of hot air folks, even failures driven away and tested elsewhere who simply ignored the fails that I had recorded.
Tyres is a common one which even the police get wrong.

Theory's exist that rapid fit centres look for work from MOT, but if you get a proper tester not motivated by bonus, there is unlikely to be too much difference from rapid fit to village garage test.
It is a minefield for getting a good value proper test these days, however a test lane that only does tests and no repairs is probably a fair way to go for honest decent opinions.

I have no complaints about my MOT tester, hence why i am making every effort to get my sill welded. My problem is finding a welder who can do a decent job.

My question was about, if i should get a job done well enough to pass the MOT now, then what complications might arise later when i want a better job done by one of the experts like Tom.

The recommended guys have very long waiting lists well in to next year.

I photographed the holed and corroded sills out of shock more than anything else before my mate patched the holes to get the car through it's MOT . When it started to break through again a few years later , I'd discovered Tom thanks to Dawn's post on here and took the car down for his assessment as part of a day out . I showed him my photo's of what lay under the paint expecting him to turn me away or suck a lot of air through his teeth but he just said he'd seen worse and gave me a great quote ! The finished job looked factory fresh :bowdown:

None, you just might have to have a slightly bigger area cut out. It's advantageous to only patch what's needed to counter this - the more original metal is available to work with, the better.

I have a guy now lined up to do a patch. Nothing to lose by the sounds of things, apart from the cost of maybe doing the job twice.

This is so true in my opinion, and why I always return to my local garage who are fair and sensible. I actually look forward to MOT time, after all I run old cars and rely on them for the safety of me and my family as well as other road users. I don't want any favours or to argue the toss.

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Update on welding to Roger.

Very pleased with this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r81chl75cv...71931.jpg?dl=0


https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ifuhlnjuy...61545.jpg?dl=0

I'm in no position to quote a price for this work as it was between the boss at GB Rally and myself, but with his workload, I can assure anybody that this firm are always busy, but always happy to help but NEVER charge over the odds for good quality work.

https://uc3452b0953b6e57d57ec0b5ee67...00&size_mode=3

Really? :eek:

No thanks

Looks solid enough, and you could always improve the kerbside view by grinding the welds a little, before undersealing. One of the most arbitrary rules in the MoT (to my mind) is the one about corrosion within 300mm of a suspension or seatbelt mounting point. (Surely the rear end of the Rover's sills must fail on this point?) I have a 4x4 which effectively has a separate chassis, but with the body welded to it. It has a deep outrigger section connecting from just behind the forward rear springhanger to the rear end of the sill, effectively the front of the wheelarch. The bottom of this outrigger commonly rusts out on these, while the adjacent 'chassis' and springhanger remain sound; however the vehicle receives a fail on the 300mm rule. The end of the sill, on mine, has passed MoT for the last 2 years with a piece of plastic glued over a large, rusty hole - to keep water out of the sill. It is just over 300mm from the spring-hanger, and the outrigger is sound!

You can grind away to your hearts content Andrew, however this won't remove the slag inclusions, undercutting, porosity, and lack of penetration.

In short it's absolute rubbish, and I wouldn't recommend anyone turning out work like that, it has been carried out with too much stickout, running backhand with the wire feed set too fast, and the current set too low, and the operator running too fast.

This is the problem, anyone can call themselves a welder, without the actual ability to weld.

Brian :D