Took the Fiesta back for another go at the MoT. I was quite confident, as I had fixed the three failures from last time (tyres, disks and number plate) and since I can’t drive it it had only done about 6 miles and spent all its time in the garage. But, of course it failed again. It appears I got a different inspector and he took a different view of the car’s shortcomings!
The failings were:
- Rear axle bushes.
- OSF brake pipe.
- Emissions!!
The first two were advisories last time and clearly the new inspector just takes a annoyingly more stringent view of them. The emissions is however a bit of a mystery as it is much worse than last time.
The garage agreed that it was unlikely to be the catalyst suddenly failing and that the most likely problem was simply the long time it had been stationary in the garage. The solution is to give it a good drive, but since it is on a SORN I obviously can’t do that!
Their solution is for me to go away and fix the suspension and brakes and then bring it back for another go. If it passes the emissions then great! If not, they will bung some trade plates on it and run it around the ring road for a while to see if that helps.
So, now I need to order some new suspension bushes and the bits to make brake pipes.