Excessive play sir!

[Steve Medlock]

My X Trail was in for its annual service and MOT on Wednesday at the main dealer. They do a 'health check' first of all and send you a video. The technician was happy with everything except the track rod ends which he said had excessive play and may fail the MOT later. A helpful quote to replace them was costed at £850 (what - to replace 2 tre's - how much???). So naturally, I'm looking for replacement TREs and wondering whether I'll still be able to drive it if it fails.....

Anyway, the service assistant calls to tell me I can collect my car - MOT passed, no advisories.

When I asked her how it was that the technician thought the TREs were excessively worn but the tester thought they were OK, she said that they were doing different jobs. Cynical me thinks he knows what the technician's job is then.

Just wondering how many people would have panicked and agreed to £850 of work to ensure an MOT pass?

 

[Duncodin]

MOT doesn't check tracking toe in/out. Any wear at all on the track rod joints will cause toe in/out issues that cause uneven wear on tyres. But MOT doesn't give a hoot about that. Or should I say he's not allowed to care about it.

So I'd say both guys are correct.

 

[Steve Medlock]

Just having a quick check of the manual and the main criterion seems to be movement at the steering wheel although there is this:

(b) A steering ball joint: (i) with excessive wear or free play (ii) worn to the extent there is a serious risk of detachment

Major Dangerous

So I would think from that a badly worn TRE could be a Major Defect.

The main point that I was trying to make in the post was that some people may be coerced into authorising expensive work unnecessarily.

 

[the Nefyn cat]

some people may be coerced into authorising expensive work unnecessarily.

Would you be referring to the national chain that spells the word "quick" with two Ks?

And back when I was doing my MOT tester training stuff one of the questions was "how much play on a steering ball-joint"? I said the least possible play, and was wrong because the correct answer was around a tenth of the size of the ball-joint pin. Or between 1-2 mm. Seemed a lot to me, and as a mechanic I would have definitely changed any joint with that much play, but as an MOT tester you must go by the book.
So both answers were right, depending on who was asking the question.

 

[Argyll Andy]

Very same happened to my daughter about 6 weeks ago, tried to frighten her into work which was totally unnecessary. Quote was circa £1,500 and was AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY according to them, dangerous to drive etc. Quoted as needing a suspension arm I’d replaced in the last 10 months as it was “hanging off” but they never identified the water loss it was having so that wasn’t in the quote!!

She lives over 2 hrs away so I swapped cars with her, took it too my usual place, they only did one of the suggested things by other garage, which I knew needed done, and identified a cracked radiator as the cause of the coolant loss. Including the MOT and new radiator, and front end removal too fit radiator, £512.96 all in

Not gonna lie I was absolutely f***ing furious with the first garage and their bully boy tactics, waiting to see what, if anything, I hear back from trading standards.

 

[Steve Medlock]

Would you be referring to the national chain that spells the word "quick" with two Ks?

And back when I was doing my MOT tester training stuff one of the questions was "how much play on a steering ball-joint"? I said the least possible play, and was wrong because the correct answer was around a tenth of the size of the ball-joint pin. Or between 1-2 mm. Seemed a lot to me, and as a mechanic I would have definitely changed any joint with that much play, but as an MOT tester you must go by the book.
So both answers were right, depending on who was asking the question.

No, this was the main dealer (actually Kwikfit were brilliant when I had the Z3 MOt'd a short while ago). They also gave me a quote of about £170 to replace a tyre with 5mm tread remaining (1 year old) and pointed out the 250 ml of screen wash used in the service when I had just filled it to the brim.