Had my first SVA test today and to say I was nervous would be an understatement to say the least.

PRE SVA PICS HERE

Car on the trailer last night, had to fit my old steel wheels to get it on there as the alloys made it too wide to fit. No worries, thought I'd just change them this morning before the test was started.

So arrive at the test station this morning and say to the guy 'I'll just unload and do a quick wheel swap and then I'll be ready'.

Wasn't expecting the response of 'You can't do that here mate, Its a test station, not a workshop!'.

Bugger, so I had to test on my transport wheels which leave alot to be admired.

Anyway, do the test and it scraped through on the emmisions. My maths is still ok and I managed to work out the speedo settings ok so that passed. The sound test passed. Headlight aim adjusted at time of test so was ok. A couple of raised eyebrows at my rear fog light but decided that it was a pass.

Main fail points were no self centering, no grille so radius fail of the rad, and the aspect ratio of the front tyres don't match and one of them has the wrong speed rating. There were one or two other little things most of which I've sorted already so all in all a good fail.










Thanks to everyone for all of your help.

Mark

sounds like the tester was a git (you can tell him I said so) imagine failing the car on tyres he knew were only on for transporting it...rad looks miles inside the car, how did that contact anything??

hope you kicked him in the nuts

[Edited on 6/4/09 by Mr Whippy]

Good result, well done.

Can i make a suggestion? A nice set of alloys would look better

that tester sounds like a bit of a nob 'ed.

could you park outside and change wheels next time?

you should really have got matching tyres for the front

not too bad though, and you would have failed on self centring anyway, would have been much worse if he just failed you on the tyres

you should have just drove the car off the SVA Centre premises and changes the wheels in the street.

Tester does sound like a bit of a DEK! what station was it?

symathy mate.i failed on friday because of self centering.inspector wouldnt let me adjust anything to try and fix it.i explained it was a 4hr round trip and to give me 5 mins to adjust.he said no.although he had kept me sitting outside the centre for 20mins in the rain.needless to say i couldnt hold my tongue.

Did he mention the headlights at all?

Its been suggested that they wouldnt pass SVA....

The test was at Avonmouth in Bristol. I'm pretty lucky as the test station is closer to me than my work is so no big deal about having to go back. The tester was actually a nice guy and I feel did a very fair test. If it hadn't of failed on the self centering then I could have probably done all of the amendments this afternoon and tried to get it passed then. I did mention going off site to change the wheels but there would be no point as it still wouldn't have made a pass anyway.

I think next time I'll drive up with my alloys on and hope for a pass. I've just been out to get some of the parts I need to fix it. Just need to work out how to fix the self centering now.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jumpy Guy
Did he mention the headlights at all?

Its been suggested that they wouldnt pass SVA....

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'changed the angle'??

can you explain what you mean?

The lights have a 'flat beam pattern' which actually isn't flat, its a slight v pattern with a 7.5 degree kick on either side. SVA requires a 15 degree kick to the left so I removed the light lens and rotated it anticlockwise (looking at the lens) by 7.5 degrees to give the correct pattern.

I have a couple of photos showing this on my phone, I'll upload them when I get a chance.

Photo of the headlight as promised. You can see in the photo that I've had to file a small recess in the cover next to the original one at the bottom of the lens.

not to bad sounds better than my fail
was your tester tony?he seemed like an decent enough bloke i had him today

can i ask what did you use to cover your suspension and harness clips

cheers stu