NCT failed, nothing wrong according to garage, what should I do?

Eirae

Hi All,
Apologies for starting a new thread on this subject but the ones I found were inactive for many years and maybe rules have changed since.
I went to NCT 2 months ago and it passed with no issue (car was very over due and got fixed by garage just before).
Last week, I went again for NCT due in 3 months and this time FAILED-DANGEROUS. Cause : breaks leaking. The guy at NCT explained to me that he had to tell me that I am not allowed to drive the car on the road and should call a garage to remove the car from the premise. Saying that, he also told me "off record" that I would not put myself in danger to drive home and to garage, which I did.
So car is now at the garage and they looked the breaks and cannot find any leak at all.
What should I do ? I can of course start by seeking a 2nd garage advise (costing me money again) but what's next if they don't find anything neither ?
Some people advise me to go back to NCT without saying anything and hope for a pass with another technician
Other people advise me to complain when I go to re-test and tell them before the test what the garage told me. (other people saying absolutely not as this will encourage them to find a fault).
If I pass the 2nd time with nothing done, is there anywhere I can/should complain to ?
Any advise is welcome

biko

Brakes leaking is a serious issue and I doubt the nct tester would just blurt it out over nothing.
Is the brake fluid low? Does the brake pedal feel "spongy"?

ironclaw

Inherent problem with the NCT is you don't have any proof as the second you leave sight of the center, your chain of evidence is broken. Not saying its the case OP but your brakes could have been leaking and when you brought it to the garage (Lets say for example its the same one that fixed it up) they could have fixed the fault and said nothing other than 'They are fine' to hide the fact they messed up. Likewise the NCT tester could have been mistaken but theres no oversight so it basically boils down to word against word, which is hopeless.

I'm surprised in the case of 'Dangerous' they don't have a second tester sign off on it and produce some evidence other than a mark on the sheet e.g. Photographic. Or better yet, run the car through immediately again and don't tell the second tester any details of the previous test. If they correlate, its a given.

In short, you have zero comeback as neither side can prove there was an issue to start with.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Could it been a drop of water/rain that the tester saw and thought was brake fluid? If it were me I'd ask the mechanic to thoroughly dry all the lines/pipes/calipers etc etc with kitchen roll or the likes, run the engine for a while and if he has a 4 poster lift actually put the car on the lift, drive the wheels and brake several times to check for leaks under load.

I'm assuming the NCT tester specified where the leak was?

Four Phucs Ache

My wife's car failed dangerous on leaking back brakes 2 years ago.

The mechanic replaced the rear pads and sprayed WD 40 on the pins to release the caliper the previous day.

Told test centre this and showed receipt for new pads but they wouldn't accept.They stated they don't have the facility to test chemical compounds so could not confirm if it was WD40 or brake fluid.

Cleaned it myself , retested and passed.

dogmatix

Zero comeback with the NCT - back in 2015 my car failed on a headlight. Brought it into my local advance pitstop and the bloke said there was nothing wrong with the lights. The following weekend the car was retested and passed with flying colours.

I complained to the NCT with the intention of getting the retest fee refunded but other then getting a smarmy letter from the NCT which seemed to be insinuating I was trying to pull a fast one on them I never got anywhere. It's your word against their's in the end.

The Bishop Basher

Had a similar experience. Car failed but mechanic couldn't find any reason for failure. Retested without doing anything to the car and it passed..

I tried to claim the retest fee back but was just fobbed off repeatedly..

NCT is nothing more then a money making scam endorsed by the government.

Just suck it up and bend over i'm afraid... This is Ireland..

Stoolbend

I had a customer come in last week with same problem.

Couldn't find any leak. But this tester hadn't bothered with the fail dangerous sticker.

Eirae

Thank you all for your messages. Give me a bit of hope that the retest will be fine. I will post later this week after retest to let you know.
(ironclaw I like your idea, I was saying the same to my friends (would love to see a picture or a short recording as proof of why they fail). But nothing is free so I guess that would bring up the price of the test up to another 100 so not sure if would worth it, maybe in 20years).

feargale

Swanner wrote: »

Had a similar experience. Car failed but mechanic couldn't find any reason for failure. Retested without doing anything to the car and it passed..

I tried to claim the retest fee back but was just fobbed off repeatedly..

NCT is nothing more then a money making scam endorsed by the government.

Just suck it up and bend over i'm afraid... This is Ireland..

Would none of you guys think of claiming your money back in the Small Claims Court? That might show them that nobody is above the law. Personally I think it's all wrong that the implementation of a legal obligation should be in private, profit-motivated hands.

Mc Love

Failed for a crack in the windscreen, got a mate to fill it in, went back to NCT - they ask did I get a new windscreen, said I did and they passed it - complete cowboys!

dudara

feargale wrote: »

Would none of you guys think of claiming your money back in the Small Claims Court? That might show them that nobody is above the law. Personally I think it's all wrong that the implementation of a legal obligation should be in private, profit-motivated hands.

The main issue is proving it. Based on the instrumentation and measurements that they take, the NCT state whether there is an issue or not. i.e. Based on the evidence available at the time, the tester believes their opinion to be correct. It's a process that is designed to be repeatable and standardised.

The main area of possible doubt is that of calibration, i.e. were the machines calibrated correctly at the time of your NCT? If not that would introduce a bias that the tester may not notice.

rex-x

dudara wrote: »

The main issue is proving it. Based on the instrumentation and measurements that they take, the NCT state whether there is an issue or not. i.e. Based on the evidence available at the time, the tester believes their opinion to be correct. It's a process that is designed to be repeatable and standardised.

The main area of possible doubt is that of calibration, i.e. were the machines calibrated correctly at the time of your NCT? If not that would introduce a bias that the tester may not notice.

Much of the test is visual inspection and based on the testers opinion rather than any sort of test equipment. The Nct is a very much needed service and is usually quite fair in my experience but these phantom fails do happen fairly regularly and nobody ever gets anywhere with complaining, just get handed a complaints form and shuffled out the door to be told to f off by the head office.

I had a customers punto that failed on a lower balljoint. It was perfect with no play so sent the car back in and it passed. The office reply was that it "came back into tolerance" for the second test and when I queried how the metal regrew itself I was just given the not our problem no refund will be provided etc spiel

ironclaw

As a coincidence, mine was in for an NCT this morning. I'm waiting on a new Bilstein set up in the New Year but sent it in anyway. The driver rear is spring is about 0.5" lower than the other side.

Passed with not even a single note of it.

Muckie

During the summer car went for its NCT.

Had trailer hitch on it, previous owner shorten the end of the exhaust to allow the trailer hitch.

Didnt effect any previous NCT's

Now i removed the hitch and the car failed, exhaust issue........"leaking"

So i fitted 6 inch tip onto it, happy days i thought, re-test here i come.

Failed again......"leaking"....so i appealed this with the NCT.
(tester was in a fowl humour that day - your car is pissing out water from its exhaust!)....

Back and forth emails, then they finally refunded me €28 re-test fee.

So dont take anything they say as gospel.

Fight your corner.

slave1

dogmatix wrote: »

Zero comeback with the NCT - back in 2015 my car failed on a headlight. Brought it into my local advance pitstop and the bloke said there was nothing wrong with the lights. The following weekend the car was retested and passed with flying colours.

I complained to the NCT with the intention of getting the retest fee refunded but other then getting a smarmy letter from the NCT which seemed to be insinuating I was trying to pull a fast one on them I never got anywhere. It's your word against their's in the end.

Snap, I had a late evening test a few years back so had arranged to pop into the garage after work to get my lights aligned just before the test, drove straight to test centre and it failed, drove back to garage and stayed there while they looked at it and they did nothing saying the lights were perfect, brought it back for retest the next week and it passed!

joujoujou

rex-x wrote: »

Much of the test is visual inspection and based on the testers opinion rather than any sort of test equipment. [...]

^^ This! ^^

Indicator bulb being "not yellow enough" as perfect example.

Irish Steve

Not NCT, a DOE centre, failed a van recently that I'd been working on for a friend, and one of the fails was "pitted or corroded brake pipes on axle 2. When we got it up on the ramp a few days later, what did we find? Perfect COPPER pipes, with not a sign of any corrosion, or anything else even remotely like corrosion, and copper pipes don't "pit". Ran a wire brush over them to make it clear that they were copper, and did nothing else, next test, not a word about brake issues.

There is no doubt that with the appalling lack of interest and awareness of Irish motorists where safety and maintenance is concerned, the testing regime is essential, I well remember some of the absolute wrecks that used to be on the roads in the late 80's, going sideways along the road, and if you were lucky, there might be one corner that had working lights, and no one saw anything wrong with that.

Ideally, after the test, if there are issues with the vehicle that are in dispute, it should be possible for the owner or presenter to be able to get the exact issues pointed out at the centre, and if there is any doubt, there needs to be some form of system to enable the recording of the dispute before the vehicle leaves the test centre, with the dispute details ideally photographed, so that there can be appropriate follow up at a later date.

Realistically, if we are to be blunt about it, the vast majority of fails are valid fails, and with the exception of emissions issues, which are not usually safety related, those fails have the potential to affect the safety of the vehicle., or to compromise the safe operation of the vehicle. There are occasions when the fail is not a valid fail, and the system as presently set up does not cater for dealing with them in an acceptable manner.

I prefer the Irish system of testing only at designated stations to the system in the UK, where the testing station can also carry out the repairs before retesting, as there is just too much risk of fails being processed in order to provide work for the repair side of the business.

While the system is dependent on the opinion of one person, with no real appeal process, there will be problems, hopefully, at some stage, a better way of resolving those issues will evolve, what we have now is a lot better than the unregulated mess that went before testing, and an enhanced system in the future could resolve some of the issues that this thread is highlighting. I'm not sure it will happen any time soon, as there's probably not a lot of votes in it for the politicians that will have to make it happen.

edburg

joujoujou wrote: »

^^ This! ^^

Indicator bulb being "not yellow enough" as perfect example.

Had similar to this with my old Cavalier when I first moved here, youngster failed it for side light not bright enough at Charleville centre. Had passed MOT 3 weeks prior in UK :pac: :pac: (I had to MOT it as was main transport and driving alot in weeks up to move, never got away with no MOT)

But had no real issue's with Blarney and Little Island centre's other than one tester telling me that my Astra didn't have a slip diff on it because they never came with one

Agree with previous comment that NCT is very much needed here but I would perhaps prefer at least 1 actual trained mechanic of sorts available for things that may need a double check.