A motorist who bought a used car with a valid NCT certificate has been told the car is “unroadworthy and unsafe for occupants and it does not conform to the requirements of the Road Traffic Act”.
Esther Woodley from Clondalkin in Dublin traded in her old 2008 car for a 171-registered Volkswagen Polo hatchback at a Dublin-based dealership.
She was assured that her Polo would be delivered with a fresh NCT certificate, giving her peace of mind that it was going to give her years of safe, reliable motoring.
However, she noticed the Polo’s dashboard was repeatedly lighting up with serious warning symbols. “I took a photo of the dash lights on my phone,” Ms Woodley told The Irish Times. “I sent that to the person who’d sold me the car, and he got back to me to say: ‘No worries, we’ll have that checked and sorted for you.’ Happy days, I thought. But then there was no further response.”
Ms Woodley drove back to the dealership with her father, only to discover that there was new signage up, and completely new staff working there. At this point, unsurprisingly, suspicions were raised.
“I found an independent automotive engineering consultant to come and check the faults that were coming up,” said Ms Woodley.
“A few hours later he rang me and said: ‘I’d like you to come down and see this. Normally we don’t deal with this face-to-face, but the computer codes are the least of your worries. The chassis is hanging out of this car.’
“He thought that there was no way it had actually been through an NCT; in fact he thought that the NCT cert that I had was a fake initially.”
On foot of this troubling information, Ms Woodley contacted the NCT’s customer service department to complain.
After several days and more calls, the NCT arranged to have the car inspected by the Automobile Association (AA), as is standard procedure in a case such as this. In the meantime, Ms Woodley had arranged for an independent automotive engineer to examine the car.
That independent report made for some shocking reading. In one paragraph, the assessor noted: “The welding work carried out to the driver’s side front chassis rail is of very poor quality and does not conform to manufacturer or industry acceptable standards. There are gaps all around the welding area which affect the structural integrity of the vehicle.”
Later in the report, the assessor delivered the hammer blow to Ms Woodley’s hopes of a reliable, safe car: “A close examination of the passenger side front chassis rail revealed substandard welding repairs completed to a heavily damaged or deformed chassis rail. There is also evidence of the chassis leg deformation from impact damage received.
“I deem the vehicle to be unroadworthy and unsafe for occupants and it does not conform to the requirements of the Road Traffic Act. I have advised that the vehicle not be driven on public roads and be parked up securely.”
It seems the vehicle had received a heavy front impact, which had damaged major components, including the chassis and the subframe holding the engine in place. The chassis had subsequently been cut and a new section inserted, held in place with a couple of tack welds on the driver’s side, while the passenger’s side was heavily deformed.
With the AA automotive engineer and the independent engineer in agreement, the NCT had no choice but to rescind the originally issued certificate of roadworthiness.
Clearly, there are serious questions to be raised about the conduct of the dealership in question and the sales staff there, which is now likely subject to an investigation by the criminal enforcement team of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC). The case may be referred to the Garda by the CCPC, pending the outcome of their findings.
However, there is wider question about the role of the NCT service in all of this.
The car had been originally presented for an NCT inspection a month prior to the sale, and had failed. This should be unsurprising, given that, as the subsequent report showed, it had been involved in a serious frontal collision and had been written off in 2023.
However, a month later – as Ms Woodley was engaged in the purchase of the car – it was resubmitted for an NCT inspection. It failed again, but on a third attempt it passed.
Repair work had been carried out, it seems. According to the independent engineer’s report, the broken and bent chassis sections had been cut out and replaced in a dangerous fashion, but only with simple and structurally unsound spot-welds.
The car’s front-facing anti-collision radar unit was missing, as a cheaper replacement bumper had been fitted. The headlights were held in with wood screws, and a significant number of under-bonnet bodywork was missing, while the battery was loose and unsecured. Yet it passed.
In response to The Irish Times’s queries, the Road Safety Authority (RSA), which has oversight of the operation of the NCT by Spanish-based company Applus+, said it “acknowledges that this vehicle should not have passed its NCT upon its third presentation within a short period. The RSA has requested that Applus+ investigates how this occurred and that any additional training and standards measures required are identified and implemented.
“Prior to its sale, there were three attempts to enable this vehicle to pass an NCT, in two different NCT centres. It ‘failed dangerous’ the first test on August 21st.
“It failed a re-test on September 19th, before finally passing a third test on September 24th.
“The customer requested an appeal of the NCT which took place prior to her purchase and Applus+ engaged with the customer in good faith in that regard.
“The AA’s detailed assessment report concluded that the vehicle should not have passed the NCT on September 24th and also should have failed the September 19th test for additional grounds.
“It is worth noting that, in this case, repairs were undertaken – the AA report finds that these repairs were ‘unacceptable’.
“The RSA and Applus+ assert that these ‘unacceptable repairs’ were also accompanied by what appears to be a deliberate attempt to mask and conceal the nature and scale of the damage to the vehicle.”
However, the RSA did not respond to a question from The Irish Times as to how the car passed its NCT on the third try.
As for Esther Woodley, she paid a significant amount of money for a car that is now worth barely its scrap value, having believed that an inspection by the NCT would assure that the car was in essentially good condition.
“For me it has cast a huge shadow over the integrity of the NCT. It really brings home the fact that the public are relying on the NCT to act with integrity, and that cars are safe when they pass a test. I’m just shocked, and I’ve lost all faith.”
