My car has passed it’s MOT but….

A fire engine drove up my cul de sac this afternoon and, as it was doing a three point turn I shouted ‘don’t drive into me car, it’s just passed it’s MOT but needs £2,000 worth of work doing to it’. Result was they came in and fitted me some new smoke alarms and, like everyone else, advised me to go to a local garage. They agreed that it looked brand new.

I’m in a similar position to you MayBee70, although my little car is 9 years old with 23,000 miles on the clock. It passed its MOT with flying colours today, with only a comment re the back tyres having slight cracks 😳. I usually book a service along with the MOT, but what with the insurance rocketing, I’ve decided to book it in early next year 🤞. Hope you find a cheaper option and can keep your car safely on the road.

Seems a bit steep mine cost about £250 to replace one shock absorber. So I would have thought it would have been cheaper per repair if 4 were done at the same time. I'd try a different garage.

We gave up on a dealership where we had bought a new car, having reasoned as you did, but after two years we were uneasy about the quality of the work. 'Went to an independent (recommended) mechanic and he showed us several filters, dirty and clogged, that should have been changed, and soon had the car running far better for considerably less cost than the dealership. We are always given receipts, and have the FSH from him.

What confuses me is that I’ve probably spent more money by sticking with the dealership because I thought, by having a complete service history record and having all the necessary work done at each MOT I would be able to keep it running for a long time. I don’t understand how it could have got so bad so quickly.

MayBee70 that sounds like a wise move - some might say that your car would be just about 'run in' with that mileage, and you are possibly right to be suspicious both about the cost of repairs and the likelihood of someone in that dealership having an eye on your vehicle. You do have a whole year to think about this - what a minefield it is when you need advice from professionals and have to trust that they are honest and straightforward. Are you in the AA or RAC? There might be some good advice from them about the possible costs of the repairs you have been quoted.

My ex can’t look at the video for a while but he has told me of a local garage that everyone uses. I’ve also realised that I’ll be at my partners for a couple of weeks and his neighbours son, who visits his mum every now and again owns a garage so he’ll look at the video. It bothers me that I’m feeling suspicious about the garage I use. My car would definitely get sold on. One lady owner, complete service history, 20,000 miles on the clock! It’s the sort of car I’d buy myself. I wonder if they’d do the work and then sell it on? It would break my heart if I saw someone else driving it.

Popular cars don’t “run out of parts” even for an old style Mini parts are easily available. It’s corrosion that limits the life of most cars along with the cost of labour to maintain them.

Be careful with recent cars especially premium models, they are loaded with electronics that only a main dealer can fix, they can be very expensive to maintain.

Witzend

LovesBach

It's well worth keeping an older car - the general opinion is that they are better made. We maintain ours because it is reliable, so comfortable and rarely needs more than the odd spare part. 'Problem will be when parts are no longer available, but we will hang on to it as long as we can. (It's twenty five soon - 175,000 miles on the clock.)

25!! My previous car was 21, and still going strong, but I’d become nervous of doing non-local journeys in it, especially to either dd, in case it chose to die on me on an invariably very busy 6 lane stretch of the M25.

We got £250 for it, part exchange, and assumed it’d be scrapped, but dh checked the reg no. later and someone was still driving it.

My friend had the same thing happen - her ancient car was sold for scrap, and she saw it being driven the following year. A mechanic said our car could go 'three times around the clock' without too much trouble, and Volvo have a model that evidently has done 1,000,000 miles on the same engine. Here's hoping!

LovesBach

It's well worth keeping an older car - the general opinion is that they are better made. We maintain ours because it is reliable, so comfortable and rarely needs more than the odd spare part. 'Problem will be when parts are no longer available, but we will hang on to it as long as we can. (It's twenty five soon - 175,000 miles on the clock.)

25!! My previous car was 21, and still going strong, but I’d become nervous of doing non-local journeys in it, especially to either dd, in case it chose to die on me on an invariably very busy 6 lane stretch of the M25.

We got £250 for it, part exchange, and assumed it’d be scrapped, but dh checked the reg no. later and someone was still driving it.

I don't use the dealer for services and MOTs as they have a vested interest in getting you to buy more cars from them! I use the village garage - massively cheaper and they are not in the business of selling cars, but just providing a service to their customers.

I recently bought a car that was 5 years old, but had been the classic "one old lady owner" and had a tiny amount of mileage on the clock. It is worth looking around just to see what is out there before forking out more money for your existing car.

You've a year to decide what to do going forward - how much you can afford, how much you need a car - make a plan.

I think I would get a second opinion. It seems pretty expensive to me.
I used to use the main dealer but not any more. They tried to rip me off on prices several times till I got wise.
Better off with a smaller garage who's recommended. Ask around.
I use a one man band who I feel has a reputation to maintain as a lot of his business is word of mouth.
Shop around before you pay that price.

Good luck hope you get sorted ok. I've a 13 year old car, we've said while it's doing well which it is, I'll hang onto it but if it starts costing us money it's time to change.

Yes, shock absorbers in themselves shouldn't cost anything like £2000. This isn't just about replacing the shock absorbers, it sounds like the points where they are attached to the car are corroded, requiring welding work.

This seems to be an advisory. Don't panic. Wait until it DOES fail. My car has had the same advisory 'slight play in the steering joints' for its last three MOTs.

I’m also very cynical about advisory recommendations from mechanics. However, as your car has passed its MOT, then it is legally safe to drive for another year, in my opinion. Otherwise, it would have failed. Certainly get your ex to give his view, and also it might be worthwhile having another MOT, before spending money on the SAs. Mine goes in for its MOT tomorrow - it’s a small Seat, 2014. I too use the same company from whom I bought the car. 🤞

Katie59

New shock Absorbers for a 15 yr old Toyota don’t cost £2000
Maybe £500 is realistic, OH put 2 on my BMW they cost £120 and took an hour to fit.

An MOT now gives “advisories”, if they were unsafe it would have failed the MOT. Wait until it fails the MOT then replace them

Yes definitely agree.... I had 2 replaced for around £250 (independent mechanic we know) last year for my old Mazda - this is not something I would spend £2k on, without getting other quotes.

It's too much money and you have a fresh MOT now, so you don't need to panic.

I have got a video of the corrosion though, and it looks pretty bad. My ex is hopefully going to look at it.

When my daughter leant me her I took it for an MOT, it was given several advisories, it was returned to her with no work down. The follow year it passed the MOT with flying colours. I think it all depends on the mechanics, the weather, the wind direction and how they got up in the morning! That’s not to say that I don’t trust the test just some of the advisories.

New shock Absorbers for a 15 yr old Toyota don’t cost £2000
Maybe £500 is realistic, OH put 2 on my BMW they cost £120 and took an hour to fit.

An MOT now gives “advisories”, if they were unsafe it would have failed the MOT. Wait until it fails the MOT then replace them

I asked my partner about this. He said you can pick up most shock absorbers for £200/300 without knowing the model he couldn’t say if it would be a piece of cake or a b&£#@#d.
So if you say £800 for Labour that’s not too bad.

ExDancer

My 2008 Toyota actually failed because of something to do with corrosion to the suspension. They have fixed it (not had the bill yet! )
They advise looking for a replacement.
I too thought Toyotas were pretty corrosion proof. It seems not.

I think they improved corrosion wise in the years after mine was made. I’m trying to get onto a Toyota owners forum because there’s a thread about shock absorbers but I can’t seem to get past the are you a robot bit! When I asked ‘if I get this work done will I get a few more years out of it’ they wouldn’t answer. I suppose they couldn’t. I even tried the question I use with vets ‘ if it was you what would you do’ but, again no answer. My problem is my ex used to keep our cars going forever: it resulted in me driving the most awful cars which resulted in me losing my confidence driving. They were safe because he did such a good job but were horrible to drive; a Chrysler Alpine and an Austin Princess that, no matter how many times we cleaned it still smelled of my FIL’s years of smoking. A Mini Metro that had no acceleration whatsoever; I used to come home in tears because I annoyed other drivers so much. I guess I’m emotionally dependent on a car that, till now I had 100% faith in. I think the owners forum might say 2006 was a bad year shock absorbers wise. I’m going to get the work done but assume next November I will have to replace it. Annoyingly me neighbour recently stopped driving and sold their Yaris. If only I’d known.

Makes me wonder if it's the garage??? My mechanic has been looking after my car for a few years, (car is now 17 years old) when he did some work on it last year (relating to 2021 MOT) he said it needed some specialist welding. I suggested SCRAPPING the car, he said don't be daft, good car etc, pay for the welding, you'll be fine. So we paid for the welding, 3 MONTHS LATER, he came back and said start looking for another car as the other side would also need this specialist welding! I passed comment about why wasn't welding done On both sides? He shrugged his shoulders! So this year, as you can imagine, I've been panicking as to what to do, there isn't a car in our price range, for what we need (we aren't interested in brand new) and 2nd hand have held their prices, mechanic adamant SHE WILL FAIL! So someone put me in contact with a different mechanic, car passed, after he failed it On a different issue, NO specialist welding needed! He even showed me where, under the car, the repairs were done last year and DON'T need to be done this year! We're thinking our mechanic was either having a bad day last year or no longer wanted us as customers!

My 2008 Toyota actually failed because of something to do with corrosion to the suspension. They have fixed it (not had the bill yet! )
They advise looking for a replacement.
I too thought Toyotas were pretty corrosion proof. It seems not.