MoT day Thursday: will she pass?
 

The 740 is booked in for MoT: eek! Actually, I know she won't pass, because the exhaust is blowing. It's more a case of what else will she fail on?

She's been off the road more or less since last year's MoT. Trying to find where the rain was getting in, I found a rusty patch which turned out to need welding. It took time to sort that out, and then I turned my attention to swapping the knackered gearbox. I stripped everything down, but couldn't budge the bellhousing from the block. My best guess is that the dowels have corroded in. With MoT date looming, I put it all back together again for now.

The exhaust is blowing where I opened the joint between the downpipe and front silencer. I guess it just needs a bit more sealing gloop than I gave it when I refitted it. It'll fail on that, but the garage should be able to sort that out.

It may fail on my welding. I showed the garage photos of my repair as I went along, and they said it looked fine. But whether it'll pass muster when they see it in the metal remains to be seen.

And with it standing for a year, I wouldn't be surprised if the emissions are off - although I did put a fresh tank of petrol in today

But the real worry is that the car was shuddering badly on the way over. And by badly, I mean enough that I didn't attempt to go above 40 mph... I'm not sure why; my best guess is that I didn't align the prop-shaft carefully enough on refitting.

So one way and another, I'm not expecting a nice shiny new certificate this time round. Work will need doing, it's just a question of how much?

Good luck, Stephen. Coincidentally, my V70 is also going in for it's MOT tomorrow (Thurs). I'm quietly confident that it will pass, as it has done less than 1000 miles since last time, and I always give instructions to fix any minor issues (bulbs, wipers, that sort of thing) rather than issue a 'fail' - so here's hoping!

Regards, John.

Good luck with it, let us know how it goes! :thumbs_up:

Regarding the shuddering, it's entirely possible your tyres have "flat-spotted" and as you drive it they will improve. They will warm up, the natural oils in the rubber will disperse and return the flexibility to the tyres and all will be well - in an ideal world at least!

I wondered about that, Dave, and you're right of course. But it spent most of its year off up on axle stands with the tyres off the floor, so my best guess is that it's not that this time.

Anyway, I've just had a word with the guy at the garage, and they'll investigate. I'm lucky that I've got a very helpful independent: totally straightforward and happy to work on 'characterful' vehicles like mine!

Thanks, John, and good luck with yours as well!

Yes, I've always had the same 'deal' with the garages I've used: fix anything minor and pass it, otherwise give me a bell. That's always worked out nicely.

I skim-read your post John and missed you were putting your V70 in for test today - good luck with that! :thumbs_up:

Good news; it did! Just had a phone 'call to say that it needed a tyre due to age and cracking (an advisory last year) and it's all good for another year - £68 fitted plus the test.

Not bad for a 21 year old car that cost me just £550 over five years ago - how 'green' is that?! Go on for ever, these old Volvos. :regular_smile:

Hope your news is good too, Stephen. :thumbs_up:

Regards, John.

I was chatting to my local tyre place yesterday - they bunged my new Adharas on for a few beer tokens - and they say it's been non-stop since lockdown fixing perished tyres. Good legal tread, knackered sidewalls, particularly NS.
I've also noticed it checking out MOT history on prospective cars for my partner - cars that were doing 10k a year down to 3 or 4k.

Congrats on the pass John, another year for the beast! :thumbs_up:



It's funny but i generally only do about 3k/year and so far i've not had perished/cracked tyres. I'd be interested in knowing if there was a particular brand(s) that were more susceptible to cracking up/perishing etc.

Cheap tyres left to stand at the side of the road mainly. Tyre goes down slowly, sidewall gets folded, cracks and perishing happens.
Even on low miles (at £100 a tank I'll be surprised if I do more than 3000 in Val) I think all cars benefit from gentle weekly exercise. Fortunately our old petrol cars run up to temp quickly so they don't need many miles a week. I've got a 5 mile round trip which is ideal (the fact there's a pub car park at halfway is purely coincidental!)