My car just passed its MOT - I'm not impressed.

So the default position is no brakes at all? Which cars were these?

 

Interesting thread, I know little about cars and for years have had an older (non ABS) car so am really more used to this type of braking capability.
I not long ago bought a brand new car (with ABS) and as part of getting used to it went through the emergengy braking process. Did same process with both cars one after the other, the oldie is really quite unstable and unpredictable depending on small differences in road surface etc (brakes in good order but now used only as a local runabout) and the difference with ABS is astonishing, feels so much more under control and can brake with much more confidence and very short distances. Mine also also has the Anti Skid function, Honda call it VSA I think, which has activated a couple of times for wet driving on sharp curves.
Modern cars do have a lot of unnecessary gizmos and toys which I can well do without but I think ABS is one of the real positive advances in motoring technology.

 

• When was the brake fluid last changed
• Wear in suspension bushes or shock absorbers
• Coil springs (if that is the springing medium) have become "coil bound" or conversely they have gone soft
• Suspension geometry requires resetting

Any of the above will eventually happen to a car with ABS. It doesn't improve stability under braking.

Yup Bloody scary it was!
Various Peugeot models of that era if they had the ATE system fitted. It was unreliable at best and I made good money removing the system and replacing it with a non ABS braking system from the same model.

 

Unfortunately, worryingly, if you read some car forums, you'll see that many people do their own modifications that not only render their insurance void (undeclared mods) but in some cases make the car so it could not pass an MOT. To get round this latter point, it is not unusual for such people to put standard parts back on while the car gets tested.

Worse than that, I'm convinced some drivers know the right people. I bought an ex private hiretaxi. I remember from when my dad was a taxi driver, the rules for taxis are more strict, I believe being tested twice per year, and more thoroughly. So with this in mind, and with the car having 6 months MOT on it, I thought it must be well maintained.

The tracking was a little bit out, so I took it to my trusted garage. The car had been up on the ramp for seconds when I got shouted to come and look. Suffice to say that there is no possible way the wear and tear we saw had only happened since the last MOT. Rear trailing arm bushes just gone, one track rod end rotten through, the other partially seized at the ball joint, you could jiggle one of the front lower arms effortlessly with one hand, front brake discs badly worn, rear brake discs just destroyed, one rear caliper seized solid, and rear anti roll bar bushes rotten.

We're talking maybe 3 or 4 years of wear and tear past the legal limits. Either the car wasn't properly tested, or parts were swapped for the test and swapped back afterwards, but the mechanic, when he'd fixed it all, said some of the bolts were seized solid, not touched in years.

 

There will always be those that cheat the system.
But I know of quite a few people who are honest, have had MOT falures and got the problem fixed.
Without the MOT they would have carried on driving a pretty dangerous car.

 

Come and visit the island Pete! We have no MOT here and ABS/brakes would be the last thing that would scare the life of of you. You should see the threadbare tyres that some people are driving their young families around on here. What makes that worse is, many of those cars have powerful engines under the bonnets. And......we have no speed limit outside of the normal, around town restrictions. Choose your speed and hit the pedal!

 

A little MoT story. I had one of mine for its test here, and it passed with no problem. Drove it the 15km home, and started to service it. So far, I have: Replaced both front discs, freed of both rear calipers, replaced all of the brake pads, and shock absorbers...In defence of the MoT place, the seized rear calipers were missed because its not possible to test its brakes on rollers, but even so, everything should have been seen.