Hi! Looking for some help please! This is my fiat’s most recent MOT certificate, they said at the garage the problems identified would need to be sorted by the next MOT. So my question is.. will my car fail it’s next MOT in September if I don’t get this all sorted? And does anyone know how much roughly it’s likely to cost? I did ask the garage at the time and the receptionist didn’t know and said they’d contact me with a quote, which they never did. I struggled to get any more info from them so was planning on trying a new garage. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Thought I’d add in case it’s hard to read the hand writing... the front left running light has been knocked out, exhaust flexi is deterioted, suspension is starting to deteriorate and the brake pipes are corroded. The tyres and wiper blades have been sorted.

Well at a guess the light sounds an easy fix, it could be a bulb or even broken, replaced. Regarding flexi, depending the state of the rest of the system, it may well worth your while replacing the whole lot. If it's just the flexi an easy job for someone handy with the spanners, do you know anyone? Brake pipes need doing by either a mechanic or brother/boy friend/uncle/granddad who knows about these things.

All in all not really that a big job, but it's having the contacts if you cant do these things yourself. If you have to use a garage, get some advise which one to use in you area. Hope this helps.

Aye, could not read the pic'

Thank you for your advice. The whole light has been knocked back, I was told the clips holding the light in place have been snapped, so it needs replacing. The garage said they need to take the bumper off to do so, then glue it back on and it takes 24 hours to set! So I was thinking that will incur extra costs!

Whether it fails is really a question of whether it's got any worse.
The DRL is an interesting one because - if it didn't fail last year - there's no reason it should be a fail this year.
Exhaust and brake pipe corrosion is likely to have gotten worse, so will need to be sorted out, suspension will depend on exactly which component we're talking about but from a safety standpoint replacing any components on the verge of rusting through is a good idea.

Regardless of any issue that was identified, things need sorting out, it's as simple as that, the way you go about it is up to you.

This is called running repairs and maintenance, it's good that you have been given a heads up of the potential failure of certain components which means you have got chance to sort them at you leisure before catastrophic failure, and I'm sure you must have seen rusty exhaust parts by the side of the road from cars whose owners were oblivious to the state of their ride.

Paul m.

The wipers and offside front tyre will quite likely need doing by not time definitely the tyre if it was on 2mm unless it's covered very low mileage
Exhaust possibly too but unless it's leaking it's just an advisory

DRLs are held on with three bolts. They often break but if only 1 or 2 are broken they can be cable tied back on. Having said that you can pick one up on eBay for under £30.

The brackets are mounted on another piece of plastic which is glued/bonded on. If that has failed it needs to be rebonded. Easy enough. You do need to at least take the bumper off that side and depending on what you do have to do it might be easier to take the whole thing right off.

In order of priority I would do;

Have a look at the front brake pipes. If it's the metal pipes, corroded where they join the rubber pipe to the caliper, then they'll need to be replaced sooner or later, depending on how bad they've got since last year. If it's just the metal ferrules on the rubber pipes, then that's less severe (they're cheaper and easier to replace..). Worst case is that the nuts on the metal pipes have corroded to the metal pipes and also the ferrules on the rubber pipes, so that separating them is impossible, so you might need to change the whole lot.

The damper rubbers deteriorating will mean a new set of rear dampers. They're easy to fit but dampers can be a little bit dear (especially if you buy genuine Fiat parts rather than a good aftermarket brand). It can be cheaper if you can buy the parts yourself after shopping around, rather than letting the garage buy them.

Exhaust flexi section can be replaced by your friendly local exhaust place. Change it if it's blowing badly... but if it looks "okay" and not making any obvious blowing noises, then I'd save the money in the piggy bank and only change it if the car fails the MOT,

The DRL sounds like someone will have to repair the bumper doodah where the mount is bonded to it. A friendly local garage can do it, especially if they're doing the other work at the same time. The cost of this will be just labour so it's probably a half-hour or hour charge (£70?)


Ralf S.