NCT + Headlights = Me Being upset.

Archeron

I know this is an issue thats oft mentioned by NCT goers, so just wondeirng if anyone here has had any experience.

I got my car serviced, including some headlight realignment (€30 for that bit)
I done my NCT, and failed for some niggly things, including the lights being off.
I brought it to another garage who reset the lights again (another €30) and brought it back, whereupon I once again failed for headlights.
The NCT form gave no indication as to WHAT was wrong with the lights, just said they were off centre. (should have asked, but I thought the NCT form would tell the mechanic what he needed to know.)
Having brought it back to the garage again, the mechanic is 110% adamant that there is nothing wrong with the lights, and doesnt understand why it keeps failing.

Now I'm almost out of the 30 days retest period, the NCT tell me that there are NO slots available in which I can book in and that I will have to resit the entire NCT again from scratch. I'm feeling that since nothing with the lights has changed (on mechanics advice) that its going to fail again, and that I will be caught in a never ending NCT headlight allignement cycle.

Needless to say, at €30 per allignment, €29 per NCT retest, €49 if it has to start again, and time taken off work, this is becoming tiresome.

Anyone ever encounter this type of thing before and what did you do to resolve it?
Cheers.

Kimbot

Did you ever have a front impact of any kind in the car??

Seth Brundle

jonny24ie wrote:

Did you ever have a front impact of any kind in the car??

Im not sure why that is relevant. The lights were checked and should therefore pass.

Seth Brundle

Same thing happened my father. His carina failed on headlamps right after Denis Mahony's checked them. He was not going to pay to have it either fixed or retested as he had already done so. Both sides were accusing the other side of having faulty equipment.
Anyhow a letter was drafted and sent off to Mahonys, the NCTS, the Dept of Transport and the AA explaining how he was caught in the middle.
Shortly afterwards, the NCTS and Mahonys arranged to have the car collected, the lights checked at the dealership and then taken up to Finglas for the test. It passed.
When the mechanic delivered the car back to my father he asked if they re-set the lights in order for the car to pass. They didn't because "there was nothing wrong with them in the first place"!

Archeron

Edit, sorry in response to Johnny24ie

No, none at all. I've actually had the car for 10 years ago, and the last time the car was NCT'd (about 5 years ago, was off the road) it went through with not a bother.

Kimbot

kbannon wrote:

Im not sure why that is relevant. The lights were checked and should therefore pass.

If the mount is loose on one of the lights then it will shake with the vibrations of the engine thus giving a false reading!! I have seen a few cars with this happen thankfully they didn't pass as they were deffo not road worthy!!

mustang68

Another thing that may do it is if the reflectors in the light are pitted, or in bad shape. The garage will align the lights, but they will fail the NCT because there is too much scatter.

Henry Ford III

Archeron wrote:

I know this is an issue thats oft mentioned by NCT goers, so just wondeirng if anyone here has had any experience.

I got my car serviced, including some headlight realignment (€30 for that bit)
I done my NCT, and failed for some niggly things, including the lights being off.
I brought it to another garage who reset the lights again (another €30) and brought it back, whereupon I once again failed for headlights....

Why didn't you take it back to the 1st garage after it failed on headlight alignment?

JHMEG

mustang68 has potentially hit the nail on the head. One lad I know was ping-ponging between the garage and the NCT centre with the very same problem. Turned out the lights were aligned, but not focused, due to bad reflectors (a badly seated bulb will have the same effect).

You really need to ask the NCT lad who does the test what it is that's wrong with the lights. I don't think anything is kept on file that isn't on the sheet, so if you didn't ask at the time, it may no be possible to get an answer without another test.

Archeron

Henry Ford III wrote:

Why didn't you take it back to the 1st garage after it failed on headlight alignment?

Because the guy in that garage is a complete and utter waste of human organs and I suspect due to other people I know's comments that he ends up doing more damage to cars than repairs. I only went to him because I thought he was the only one in my town doing it, but afterwards found out that own mechanic who is tried and tested has the machine as well.
I also wanted to get a second onion.

Archeron

mustang68 wrote:

Another thing that may do it is if the reflectors in the light are pitted, or in bad shape. The garage will align the lights, but they will fail the NCT because there is too much scatter.

Hmm, thats interesting. I have never heard of this before and deffo worth checking. It would be immensely helpful though if they actually said that on the report print out instead of confusing poor little me like this.

milltown

Another possibility:
The NCT test requires that the boot be empty so they can check the spare wheel. If you had a few stone of spuds/set of golf clubs/Encyclopedia Britannica in the boot when the lights were being adjusted there could be quite a difference.

blastman

Archeron wrote:

I also wanted to get a second onion.

What happened to your first onion?

louie

used for a quick salad. Anyhow, as it was mentioned above I'll make sure the boot is empty both times, while adjusting and testing.

slipss

In a garage I worked in before we had the same problem, we'd focus and allign the headlights perfectly, the car would go off the the NCT centre and would come back failed, only happened on some cars. Took us a few weeks to work out what was happening, till someone figured out it was only the cars that went to a certain test centre that were failing. For some reason they were reading the x axis high, so from then on we just found out which centre the car was being tested in and if it was that centre we would adjust the headlights lower than normal or advise them to go to a different centre. I just presumed there equipment was calibrated wrong or something, we reported it to them but never got a response. Might be the same deal with yours.

overdriver

Tyney had the same problem but insisted they test it on a different machine at the same centre, as he'd aligned them himself using a freshly calibrated machine. They said no til he demanded to see the calibration cert for the machie it failed on.

At that point they capitulated and re-tested. Guess what? It passed.