I see our farcical NCT motor test is giving appointments for almost 8 months from now. Why can’t we have an MOT like Britain with 23,500 garages licenced to do the test. We’ve copied so many other things from them.

21 comments

1. Hopefully they will change it. The commercial vehicle tests here are all done with private garages and you’re never waiting more than a couple weeks for an appointment

2. I personally wonder if there is a bit of sexism with the NCT. Most of the time, when I hear people getting done like this, it is a woman.

3. Our approach is better.

   The people testing the cars have no financial interest in the repair business.

   That’s a good separation of duties and avoids corruption.

4. As much of a farce as the NCT is, you should see what it’s like over in the US. Had to bring my car for inspection (US version of NCT) and all they do is plug the car into the computer. At no point did they rev the engine, have the car on the roller tracks, test brakes – nothing. Literally just plugged it in, checked something for 20 seconds (presumably emissions), and I drove the car out of the center with a pass. The car before me was missing several body panels and was making mad noises driving into the place, they also seemed to pass. So while the NCT can be just a money making scheme, at least they do seem to actually “test” the car a bit more than what I’ve seen over here.

5. My car failed on headlights being uneven, did absolutely nothing, brought it back and a different guy passed it

6. Because the brits are the cause of most of our fucking problems I’d rather we have so many garages licensed to do it but not because the brits are doing it

7. Time to book it in for next year

8. Booking system is broken and shite, but if you call them up you’ll get a test within two weeks.

9. Because. Monopoly.

10. The wife’s brother is a mechanic as we and he did something similar, car got failed for some part that he knew was fine. Took it off cleaned it and put tipex or painter marker mark on it like you’d see in a scrapyard went back in, car passed got the Cert and created chaos in there in a room full of people

11. Call them and you’ll get it on 3 wks.

12. Call them and you’ll get it on 3 wks.

13. It’s nct till Feb 2024??? When was did it pass?

14. I work in a garage and we see trends when it comes to things they fail cars on.last year we were getting cars in weekly that failed on headlight alignments.alot of the time we checked them and they were fine.this year seems to be about failing cars on brake lines.were getting so many of them in that we’ve started stocking them in for the common models of cars we service.

    I failed my nct in naas a few years back and was handed a list of bits it needed.
    Brought it to carlow a week later without touching it and it passed. They are horribly inconsistent.major issue is with visual inspections because they have a mix of lads who are years in the car trade and lads who have no experience in the motor trade.

    It’s all an ass covering exercise when it comes down to it.if an inexperienced examiner doesn’t know if it’s passworthy or not and they call an experienced lad over.hes just gonna say “fuck it just put it down for a fail” cause neither of them want their name attached to it if something goes wrong.

15. My car failed on an anti roll bar link or something similar so brought it to my mechanic. He had just done work on it prior to the test so was puzzled. He put it on the lift and couldn’t see what the failure issue was so said just run it through the test again. Low and behold it passed, from going up and down on a lift!!

16. They broke my gearbox. Car was grand going in, drove it less than a mile and the gearbox broke and caused the car to swerve into the left lane. Thankfully there was no other car or myself and other people could have been seriously hurt. My mechanic said no point in fighting it as it would be my word against theirs. I really should have just to even have a complaint registered.

17. I’m from the north and we have the MOT but its done through government run MOT centres much like the NCT. the issue with the MOT system on the main land is its open to a fair amount of corruption. if a private garage fails a car then they know the person wont be back to them because there is so many other options, so they are more likely to pass something that shouldn’t because they know they’ll get the repeat business. I know several people who get their mot certs in the post from garages in England who never even see the car, they pay a lot more but for cars with engine conversions or heavily modified its worth the money to save the drama. Its obviously better for the customer but it means there are cars on the road that shouldn’t be, but then again I’ve had stuff go through the mot centres in the north that probably shouldn’t have passed. I think it really does depend (For NCT and MOT in the north) who takes the car and luck really, if they think you know a bit they’ll be more likely to pass it in my experience.

18. I’d like to see a massive overhaul of the system. Absolutely start by doubling the number of centres. I’d also like to see the NCT be more of a one stop shop. Lights aren’t aligned? Fix it for me. Bulb gone, replace it for me.

    Sure, some things can’t be done quickly on the spot, but alot of things can.

    If the NCT is ultimately about safety…

19. UK and Ireland are tag team when it comes to providing stress to residents

20. And they backdate tests which is clown car

21. Just call them when you need to book it… You’ll get one inside 30 days ..both my tests (let the retest time lapse) I called and got them for 20 days time