MOT: In need of moral support

Not going to lie, I was annoyed to all hell when I failed my MOT. The paper work said:

I climb under the car, and its there, but one side has fallen down. There was a major failure which was a hole within 30cm of a body mount. The hole, is basically some rust that has expanded a cabling hole in the back corner. Nothing that has any impact on the car what so ever.

Now having a dangerous means, no driving at all. Under normal circumstances you have 2 weeks to sort the issues, but with a dangerous you are not supposed to even drive it home.

Because of the major I had to bite the bullet and get it fixed. Which meant buying a welder (that garage didnt do the best job on the last repair) and getting it repaired. A week with no car at all. But its passed and back on the road. Since then, I have cut out the whole back floor (from the seat bolts to the back door) ready for the new one to go in this week. Making that welder pay for itself now.

It sucks, but long run, as everyone has said, its worth getting it all done. I like you have been tempted to throw in the towel and get a different car. But I know this one has a solid engine, chassis is good, its just some body issues. Rather have some body rust than a dodgy engine on another car.

This sounds like good news at last. Well done. I'm sure there will be many other ways the welder pays for itself; not just through the Jimny.

Buyijng another vehicle is often like buying someone else's problems, so you've done well to stick with it.

This is the problem with the new classification system, it encourages garage owners to make dubious calls on items that aren't truly safety critical so that they can generate work for the repair side of their business. I understand that the vast majority of vehicle users have the mechanical ability of a rock and rely on a garage to keep them mobile and safe but this current system is too open to abuse. Having said that though it isn't difficult to observe what is happening on an mot and with an assistant go through a car and check that nothing is falling off etc. Doing this prior to the test is a good option to save a few quid and to give you a good idea of if the garage is trying it on.

Before the final test which passed, I said to them "if you are going to fail me, call me up while it's still on he ramp and show me the reason for the fail. That way I know what I need to cut out and repair"
They are 3 doors away from my office, think it was a good enough prompt to get me through the test. Was annoyed on the first one as there was no info about where the hole was. When I went back after searching I got a vauge answer and after searching behind the bumper I found it.

Yet they didn't pick up the boot floor was separating the whole length of the wheel arch on the drivers side

Quick update for those interested.

Lights are fixed, emissions are sorted and wheel bearing has been replaced.

The car is currently being examined by a fantastic local welder (he's 70, and isn't phased by the work at all)

The MOT tester was justified pointing out the rust - it is bad however not necessarily in the places that have been noted on the test.

Sills are going to be sorted out quite easily, they are actually perfect on the outside. Just the inner sills to fix which seems to be the easiest job.

The rear body mounts are completely rotten, as well as the rear part o the arches and body. This includes where the rear arches meet boot floor.

I am perfectly happy for the guy to fix this for me - he's quoting me £500 for both body mounts, the arches, boot floor connection and the sills.

Now, why might I still be annoyed? Well, the boot floor, arches and body mounts were originally (last year) "fixed" by KAP Suzuki - that lying bastard bodged the whole job. The boot floor has been stuck in using some kind of silicon/tar gum. The body sitting on the body mounts was tacked together using the thinnest metal I have seen and again, covered in this black rubber shite. For this privilege I paid Darren KAP Wilson (supposedly a Jimny expert) £600 in total - the robbing b*stard completely ripped me off. He didn't ever tell me how bad it was originally, which is why it has still failed now and we are now removing all of his "welding work".

Quick update, the Jim got through the MOT at a fair expense. Lots of preventative work to complete now!

For once it has a clean advisory sheet (but a pretty dramatic past MOT history list! haha).