I know when i got my 300tdi last year that the ticket was duff, but its been bugging me ever since that i wont know how bad or even if there is anything wrong with her now for another 6 months.

ive fixed loads of faults etc and she runs lovely so im fairly confident but after chatting to the garage next oor, he told me to drop it in tomorrow and he'll give her a pre-mot check over for a drink, sounds a good idea to me so i'll find out tomorrow what needs doing.

at that gives me 6 months to fix any faults before the real test

any one else done this?

i do it with me vans coz i rely on them when im workin and done it with me slitty a couple of weeks ago just little faffs n fiddles need doing but nothing major (its like avvin yer fortune told ) so yer know what to expect in the future lol

I try to keep on top of maintenance/wear/repairs all the time, rather than once every 12 months or 6 months. When I do a service (at least every 6 months) I'll take the brakes apart and put them back together again, to check the pads, any unusual wear, discs etc. And whilst there, have a good look around the axles, hubs and underneath too, for anything amiss. I'll also put it onto axle stands and take the wheels off every 2nd or 3rd time its been used off road (go off road quite often), more for a clean but also to check for anything obvious.

Having said that, I'm not an MoT tester so I don't have the experience to check everything he does, or necessarily know when something's worn to excess, so the MoT test is still a bit of a nervous time, etc.

MOT is in my opinion fairly basic when it comes to testing the vehicle and ignores many other potentially dangerous areas.

The hardest thing to predict is emissions as the rest of the stuff if pretty basic i.e brakes, wipers, lights... these things are obvious when they go bad.

mot pretest 6 months before is a bit ott int it..

a lot can happen in 6 months ..a month before i could understand but 6 months..

wiltshire landyman said:

mot pretest 6 months before is a bit ott int it..

a lot can happen in 6 months ..a month before i could understand but 6 months..

Click to expand...

If he is "Doing it for a drink" i.e. a couple of pints, I don't see what he has got to lose and might as well let him next door give it the once over.

wiltshire landyman said:

mot pretest 6 months before is a bit ott int it..

a lot can happen in 6 months ..a month before i could understand but 6 months..

Click to expand...

Yes I can see your point of view but as mentioned, he is doing it for a drink and if im lucky, I'll be able to go AWOL at work and watch him do it all, he's a friendly guy and I've sent him loads of work and we do work for him at times.

My main worry is that spring is coming and I'm probably looking to offload my Mondeo as I don't want two cars to pay for, I need the landy for it's towing ability so it has to be the Mondeo that goes, even though it does 55mpg with a heavy foot!

I know the ticket was "quick sales" one as there were several glaring faults which came to light just after I bought her, this did not distract me much as I love fiddling with landies, but I thought it best to find out if there were any major boo boo's coming in the real test.

Sort of a progress check really

I am fussy, so try to keep on top with maintenance. Anything that looks iffy gets replaced. I just had the mot done (straight through) but a month before this, I did go through everything - including scraping down, checking and repainting the chassis. Good idea, as I did find a hole and a small crack which I sorted out. I always paint the chassis grey...because you can see any problem spots appearing!

When you get the time, get underneath and have a poke about. Check for rust, leaking joints and swivels and anything else! Get in the habit of doing it monthly when you grease your joints and u/j's...saves you paying out later!

Well, I'm officially happy the wallet is £15 lighter but wow, what a weight off my mind she passed with one serious advisory and two minors.

He took me down the pit and pointed out the serious corrosion on the front to back brake pipes, these were very bad midway and he recommended in no uncertain terms to get them replaced as soon as possible. The minors were just a bit of rust swelling on one side of the rear off side body mount bracket and one headlight is off target.

I knew about the headlight and have the new mounts in the glove box ready, the rust was not terrible but he said some testers would make it an advisory.

He noticed the missing rear exhaust box but as the new pipe is in the back he didn't bother mentioning. While we were down there we had a good laugh at the slop in the rear drive, the prop has about 1/4 to 1/3 of a turn of slop so I'm not sure where that is coming from, the ujs are fine and the front is better.

There is a little movement in one of the drag link joints so I'll get that done this year too, after the track rod mess last year I might just get another drag link and joints before stripping.

So all in all, I'm bloody impressed

I love my disco even more now


BTW is brake line replacement an expensive job, I'm not sure I fancy it myself as I have no flaring tools etc and it looks a bugger to do?

There are no special complexities with brake pipe renewal on a Disco 1 but beware that the other section of pipe (towards the front) and/or the T piece above the diff, might be sufficiently corroded too. This means you'll have to replace these also, then maybe the rear flexi, and the rear (from T piece to wheels) pipes too, etc etc. But not too much hassle just a little more £ and worth doing if it needs or wants doing.

BTW my boot floor replacement passed without scrutiny too

I'll move the brake pipe part to a new thread in the disco section.

Dave