We need more classicfriendly garages
Iread JE Kirby’s letter (CCW,
9 March) with great interest because a friend of mine once took his Morris Oxford MO to a ‘classic-friendly’ MOT testing station in Cumbria.
While sitting in the waiting room, the tester came to ask him how to start it. After he had got it started, he returned to ask where the gearchange was. By this time my friend was getting quite frustrated but showed him anyway. It turns out that the guy had never come across a column gearchange before! My friend let him carry on, confident that it would pass the MOT anyway, instead of doing what most people would have done at this stage and left with their car. The final straw came when the tester popped the pipe up the exhaust and proceeded to rev the living daylights out of the poor car!
My friend paid up and left with a huge failure list on a highly maintained, show-winning car and a load of problems to correct that the tester has caused. There were three testers at this place, the oldest being around 30-35 years old!
We need more stations if we are to get our pride and joys properly independently tested!
❚ Robin Laughlin, Suffolk
Sorry to hear about such a negative experience, Robin. The FBHVC’S list of classic-friendly garages is based on recommendations from its members and currently has no sites in Cumbria, so we’re not sure on what basis this garage would have made that claim. Our advice in this situation is to get in touch with the garage first and find out about their expertise with classics, and then decide whether to book – Ed.