[Robl]

My motorhome passed its MOT 7 weeks ago. Yesterday I found the exhaust lying on the ground. It had completely broken away. All bar one of the rubber mounts were badly perished. The one good one had snapped due to the strain on it. There are 6 rubber mounts so 2 must have fallen off on the road. An advisory on the MOT states a slight leak on the exhaust. On closer inspection the pipe from the exhaust manifold to the middle box is completely corroded on the join. Just a small amount of metal holding it together.
It doesn’t bare thinking about if this had happened while driving. It’s pure luck it decided to “fall off” while the vehicle was stationary.
To report to the DVSA the 28 day time limit has expired.
It doesn’t give me any confidence in the MOT system.

[castrolrob]

neither do we unfortunately.a few years back we had a fail for exhaust excessively deteriorated.they took it out.exhaust mount defective as a stand alone fail?they took that out as well.now it has to be at the stage its falling off the vehicle(and at the time we test it not 7 weeks later)before we could fail it as such.dont get me wrong,i would have issued an advise on your ducato/boxer whatever if id seen most of the mounts deteriorated and the exhaust rotten but it would have to be a manually worded advise,the only one on the system vaguely relevant is the”slight leak”one that you actually got.as an aside the mot isnt intended as a replacement for actual maintenance as any service should have spotted most of this months/years back.campers are unfortunately notorious for crap like this as they generally do so few miles interspersed with long periods sitting in the garden decomposing followed by a 200 ml trip to wherever with rotten exhausts/seizing brakes/blown brake pipes/galloping corrosion/decayed tyres being the most likely to rear their ugly heads.i would further urge ANYONE buying one with a freshly minted mot to get an IMMEDIATE(as opposed to waiting till theyve had it a few months/next mot)independant inspection for an accurate assessment of its actual condition particularly for older versions.you would not credit some of the horror stories that i(and many other testers out there)have and do see after the poor owner runs it in a year later for test only to find its rotten.

[Robl]

If that’s true it’s just crazy.You can only use wording that’s on the system? So the “slight leak” is code for the whole thing is buggered. How is the owner meant to interpret that? Last year I had an advisory for “some age cracking” on the tyres, I suppose that means get them changed quick. As it happens I did.

[Paul S]

On closer inspection the pipe from the exhaust manifold to the middle box is completely corroded on the join. Just a small amount of metal holding it together.. you shud of appealed: 3 months from date of MOT Pass if it’s a corrosion-related problem. One or more missing or defective exhaust mountings does not necessarily make the exhaust insecure.

[Robl]

I did complain that the join was badly corroded to the DVSA. They still stand by the 28 day rule. I think they only consider corrosion if it’s part of the structure of the vehicle. Who knows?? The DVSA are going to use any excuse not to get involved.

[castrolrob]

THE CORROSION APPEALS ARE STEERING/BRAKING/SUSPENSION/BELT ANCHORS AND THE PROSCRIBED AREAS FOR THE ABOVE ONLY.theres no exhaust fail for corrosion/deteriorated anymore.no the exhaust fail for minor leak isnt code for its buggered but it can be.i have advised(for instance)minor blows that were essentially the same when i tested em the following year.conversely i have advised some that parted company a couple of weeks later.they dont come with a calender expiry date,you can only warn the owner at the time that theres a problem.its then for him to get it repaired/inspected whatever as the test is a visual inspection only and digging away at it could result in a pissed off punter with a noisy exhaust that he didnt have when he first rocked up and it WILL be YOUR fault.same with the cracked tyres,they can be bad or could last perfectly well for another year or two,you can only warn that they appear deteriorated.while its perfectly possible it was a poor test(or indeed poorly advised perhaps) the facts stated by the original poster in my own opinion make any sort of successful appeal unlikely as it seems to have met minimum rqrmnts.the pre allocated advisories that i alluded to on the system are limited but are also the only ones used by some testers.i use manual advises for precisely this sort of situation but in some cases the ministry are less than keen for you to do so and its not actually a rqrmnt to advise anything to begin with.

[Robl]

Just incredible that there isn’t a fail for a corroded exhaust. It’s also ridiculous not to be able to acertain the extent of the corrosion and the “punter” being pissed off is irrelevant. Either way they would have to fit a new exhaust whether it’s been poked with a screwdriver or not as it’s not fit for purpose. Thanks for the information. I didn’t realise how pointless the MOT test is.

[Robl]

[guest]

🙂

[Author]

Posts