MOT highs and woes

Not being a regular vehicle owner, I'm not too well versed in the ways and means with which one deals with MOTs, mechanics and garages, so forgive me if I award more interest to the ins and outs of my garage experiences of the last few weeks than a normal person might.

I was more than faintly aware from the pre-purchase RAC report that Bertie wasn't likely to pass the MOT first time so it came as no surprise when, upon returning to D&P Motors, I discovered the mechanic waving the results printout close to his chest with a look of apprehension in his eyes.

I'd calmed my nerves while the hour-long test was taking place by wandering around Flitwick's vast array of shops - Tescos, to be precise - and invested in some top kwall-a-dee supermarket chic; a £3 red handbag that will go wonderfully with my favourite polka dot dress, should I ever be reunited with the less-than-practical side of my wardrobe, plus some leggings and some shorts (so I can pretend I'm 25 again).

I knew the van was pretty rusty so it failed on three counts of corrosion. Oh, my poor darling Bertie, you're 25 years old! If only I could simply dress YOU in the car equivalent of leggings and shorts to avert the tester's gaze from signs of age and decrepitude.

The pre-purchase RAC report, Al's test drive (and he knows more than a thing or two about vehicles) as well as my own experience in the preceding few weeks had concluded that the brakes pulled to the left just a little as they're applied but they failed monstrously and were 48% out of alignment. Gosh. That's quite a lot, I thought. The test allows a 25% tolerance either way but 48% is way out of the safe zone and the mechanic pronounced this vehicle DANGEROUS to drive. Oh dear, I live four miles away, how will I get home? I pondered. Even more oh dear than that though; I just drove nearly a thousand miles in a dangerous vehicle. Does that make me a good driver for accommodating the off-centre steering and braking within my driving style OR a stupid one for buying and old vehicle with less than a month of MOT remaining? Hmmm.

The MOTman gave me a number of another garage that does welding so I got straight on to them and somewhat bamboozled the poor man (Mick the mechanic, Mick-anic...hee hee heh) into taking the vehicle the following day. I drove back to my mum's slowly and in a sorry state with a big question marks hurtling through my mind; what if Mick pronounced it too costly to fix? What if there were underlying steering issues that meant more tweaks than just to the braking system? How does a braking system work anyway? Actually, how does an engine work, come to think of it......

Yes, it wasn't the first time I realised I knew absolutely NOTHING about this kind of thing and that I would just have to trust (not to mention pay) the experts to sort it out.

It's a few days later now and Mick called this afternoon to tell me it's all fixed, he'd even taken her back to the MOT garage and could confirm she'd passed the test. Hoooray, thought I. And it's not going to cost the several hundred pounds my nightmares were predicting; it cost about the same as I managed to get the vendor to knock off his selling price upon reading the results of the pre-purchase RAC report. So...maybe I do know more about this vehicle owning malarkey than I thought I did; and I've learned just a tiny bit more now.