The NCT: Maybe I am unlucky but my not too ancient chariot failed the NCT test on two successive visits - after full service and pre-NCT inspection on both occasions. Should the garage accept some responsibility for the failures?
My car is a 1995 Renault Safrane with under average mileage. It is well tend and regularly serviced. My servicing is carried out by a large authorised dealer with modern equipment and (presumably) professionally trained staff.
Before my first attendance at the NCT centre I got the car fully serviced. Apart from the routine tasks, the garage also tackled some heavy jobs, including replacing the clutch and the front brake discs and pads.
In addition it fitted a new silencer box and wiper blades. An expensive service - a total of €1,096 in fact.
Then it was off to the test centre with gleaming car and inward confidence. The confidence was rapidly displaced by despair. The nearside front and offside front flexible brake pipes were frayed, as was the steering rack gaiter. Car failed.
Back at the garage one mechanic advised me that I should get the steering defect seen to as quickly as possible as it could be dangerous, but the supervisor dismissed the NCT findings as "petty bureaucracy". It cost me another €188 to have the faults rectified, and the supervisor assured me he had "knocked a good bit off the labour". Next time round, after servicing and pre-NCT inspection at the same garage, the car failed again.
And again it was because of a frayed steering rack gaiter. This time it cost me €123 to have the fault rectified, and another €21.90 for the re-test.
Do we not have the right to some form of guarantee for the service they provide? Should garages not undertake to carry out the required rectifications free of charge in the event of test failure or, at the very least, not impose the labour costs?
For the sake of consumer confidence and the good name of the industry, the Society of the Irish Motor Industry should turn its attention to the problem.