As i happens i had an interesting arguement with my MOT tester last week...

They failed my A4 for having a non-functional Engine management light.

It doesnt have one. Theres a bulb position on the dashboard, but A4's built before 2001 simply didnt have it connected in the European market. No idea why, but they're all like that and theres not even any wiring between the cluster and ECU. Many pre-2001 VAG models are similar.

However they've recently added the check for a working EML to the MOT, and the test has no provision for saying "it doesnt have one". It simply assumes all cars have one and that it will work.

He phoned VOSA, who just sorta shrugged and said "we've seen it before with a VW but not an Audi". He then phoned Audi, who insisted the car should have a management light (clearly main dealers with no clue about >18year old models!).

In the end i ended up printing out the wiring diagram for my car, and also for a 2001 model, which clearly showed the 2001 car had the bulb and wiring shown, and my car had nothing which was enough to satisfy him and he passed it. But your average joe isnt going to have that sort of info available to convince the tester, clearly these changes havent been fully considered!

Aragorn wrote:

As i happens i had an interesting arguement with my MOT tester last week...

They failed my A4 for having a non-functional Engine management light.

It doesnt have one. Theres a bulb position on the dashboard, but A4's built before 2001 simply didnt have it connected in the European market. No idea why, but they're all like that and theres not even any wiring between the cluster and ECU. Many pre-2001 VAG models are similar.

However they've recently added the check for a working EML to the MOT, and the test has no provision for saying "it doesnt have one". It simply assumes all cars have one and that it will work.

He phoned VOSA, who just sorta shrugged and said "we've seen it before with a VW but not an Audi". He then phoned Audi, who insisted the car should have a management light (clearly main dealers with no clue about >18year old models!).

In the end i ended up printing out the wiring diagram for my car, and also for a 2001 model, which clearly showed the 2001 car had the bulb and wiring shown, and my car had nothing which was enough to satisfy him and he passed it. But your average joe isnt going to have that sort of info available to convince the tester, clearly these changes havent been fully considered!

Most of the Fords I've seen of that era are the same - or have an MIL light that only ever comes on when the engine isn't running, even if theres misfires logged etc.

Well, got the exhaust all swapped - the old one smelt a bit when it came out... I've heard that the semi rotten egg smell can be a sign of failed cats - so chances are these are properly had it...

Out with the old

Old vs new:

Fitted and playing with getting the crossmember back in:

Almost there!

Done!

Starting to look like a new car under there with the recon gearbox, new O2 sensors and now the new exhaust...

Started it up to make sure there were no leaks etc, and it is a lot quieter now... There's no sign the old cats have been gutted, but it's a LOT more muted... unfortunately in my book, as I liked the rumble it had!

MOT retest 12pm Monday, so should be good to go now.

Out of interest, I just checked the emissions printout from my test last year (next one isn't due for another month or so). CO was 0.4% on LPG. Which isn't bad considering the cats are nothing more than empty boxes.....

I may be in the market for new Y pipe fairly soon, it's not looking that pretty, although mine has joins just after the cats so can be changed simply enough with the crossmember in place. I'd prefer to replace with another the same but it seems it depends on who you get it from whether it's in one piece or three.

I paid £195 including delivery (and included the gaskets for the headers) for that Y pipe/cats. Delivery was Parcelforce 24 Large service, and the unit itself was pretty well packaged in heat sealed plastic bubblewrap stuff.

Island 4x4 were the next cheapest about £250 +VAT - but eBay to the rescue I guess...

I'm watching this thread but nothing to add so far, I think Gilbert knows more about MOTs than I do.

Well it passed the MOT.

He retested it on non-cat once I showed the previous years' tests and results, and said he had to check under the vehicle to make sure that the exhaust was actually connected.... as the emissions - both CO and PPm were flat line 0's - zip, nada...

So that's all good and out of the way for another year. He apologised for the confusion, and actually ended up having a pretty good chat with him about LR's etc - he said all the newer ones were shite too... !

HAh - nice result! :) You can tell people you're using your Range Rover as an air cleaner.

I’m lucky, my tester is a Land Rover fanatic, I know no matter what I will pass and be pulled aside if anything needs doing. Quite handy really. 😁

Good result Marty; Hopefully he will 'get it' with other cars now (rather that just send them off for new cats etc !)

'Had to check underneath' though 'to see it was connected' ?!

Some MOT testers do 'get it' without such edification.....

Good result in the end and an interesting thread.
This thread is on subject.

MOT emissions procedures give LPG users extra leeway which is to our advantage but, as Morat implied, we still want DVSA to expect vehicles running on LPG to have cleaner emissions than petrol vehicles because if DVSA strongly enough suspects LPG emissions to be dirtier than petrol we may eventually not only lose that advantage but also have to jump through more hoops than unconverted vehicle users and/or duty on LPG may be increased.

If DVSA ran emissions tests on a number of LPG vehicles selected at random it's likely that a fair proportion of them wouldn't pass a petrol spec test. They might then think up a number of ways of addressing the fact that for so long they had presumed LPG emissions to be better than petrol emissions but had now found this not to be so for a fair proportion of LPG vehicles. Out of all ways they could think up the best outcome for us would be if they evened the playing field between MOT petrol and LPG emissions tests and considered this all that they had to do. Most of us would find this preferable to DVSA and government saying 'This is what we've found, this is where we're at, you can keep the carb MOT test limits but we found LPG isn't as clean as we thought and therefore we will increase duty by 15p per litre gradually over the next 3 years'.

When I did mine last year I got my Y-pipe from Maltings Off Road - http://www.maltingsoffroad.co.uk/

Found them on eBay where they seemed to be the cheapest place offering one with the correct type approval for my model year (there's a model year change after which the cats have to be properly type approved to be legal).

There was note on their eBay listing about joining their "Trade Club" so I contacted them, joined that and bought it directly through them with a decent discount over the eBay price.

When it arrived it was well packaged, fitted well and included the gaskets. The packaging said "Allmakes" on it.

Mine came from Maltings on their eBay store aswell from memory.