Failed SVA - A new one!

[Revets]

Hi all,

Had my SVA at Chelmsford yesterday, but failed. The tester was OK, generally friendly but unfortunately he was being assessed by VOSA and had to apply the regs to the absolute last letter.
Most fail points were understandable, but one wasn't! Failure points were;

1) Rear fog lamp wasn't quite square to rear. Maybe pointing 2 or 3 degrees to nearside, so a fail but easily fixable

2) OSR flexible hose is clamped to the suspension with a nut, the hard pipe is then secured with a nut to the flex hose. I know hard pipe nut is tighted adequately but tester couldn't see a gap between the 2 nuts (so to speak) so it's fail but it's not major & fixable.

3) On the drive to a local MOT last Friday, speedo worked fine, steady readings at all speeds up to 50mph (fastest I went). Trailered it to SVA yesterday and as luck would have it the speedo readings were all over the place. Not being satisfied with the Pilgrim daisywheel I'd decided to bolt the sensor to the diff & take the pulses for the ETB electronic speedo off the bolt heads at the diff end of one of the drive shafts. Obviously not reliable enough so I shall be switching to the ETB disc between diff & prop which others seem to favour.

4) This is the good one. I've got the std Sumo dash with the glovebox on the passenger side and decided to leave it open, ie without a flap. I'm happy its a glovebox, the tester's happy its a glovebox but the man from the Agency isn't. Apparently it's a shelf!
So during the 15 minute coffee break the tester & agency bloke ring Swansea, 30 mins later the official decision is "it's a shelf" and guess what, the regs are different for a shelf and it fails. Easily remedied but I would not much chuffed if this had been the only fail point. I've spoken to Pilgrim and this is the first time they've heard of this interpretation of what is or isn't a glovebox.
Anyone planning to do the same by not fitting a flap risks the same fate.

Anyway not too much to fix so I hope to be on the road, wind whistling through what hair I have before the summer disappears.

Steve

[JonnyT]

So when is a glove box not a glove box and why did it fail for being a shelf when it wouldn't have failed as a glove box?

[Revets]

Hi Johnny,

To quote the failure notice "Dashboard shelf has a part facing into the vehicle that is not 25mm high and edges not rounded to a radius of curvature of not less than 3.2mm". It failed because the distance from the bottom edge of the dash to the bottom of the glovebox, sorry shelf, is not 25mm.
I guess if it had been a glovebox all that would be required is raduising to 2.5mm, which it is. So the solution is to fit a hinged flap or some sort of cover over the opening and hey presto your glovebox is then officially a glovebox and not a shelf.

Makes lots of sense and converts a dangerous vehicle into a safe one!

Steve

[TheUnixKid]

Unbelievable. Testers have gone to an all time low with this. An f***ing shelf?

[gareth08]

Sorry you failed but at least it's easy to fix.

I think this is another example of how pathetic the SVA and VOSA are becoming with regards to the SVA.

I,m beginning to wonder if the big car manufacturers are putting pressure on them to stop the smaller and amatuer builders from trading or wheather it is just another tax ploy.Either way it's a f***ing joke :angry:

[Revets]

Thanks guys,

Couldn't agree more, especially when you see newish vehicles on the road that have a Type Approval but would fail SVA!

If you know the rules you can play by them, trouble is they change the rules or rather how they are interpreted. At least with this website the word can be spread.

Steve

[chedz]

I agree, sorry about the failure, though you can sleep well now knowing that if ever you drop your keys in the footwell, you won't smash your brains out on that lethal shelf when picking them up!!!

Could you explain a bit more about the problem with your nuts please?

For the flexi pipes I have them coming out of the caliper with a lock nut against the caliper, then the flexi is attached to the chassis at the top of the wheel arch with a metal bracket. The copper (female flare) is attached to the flexi with a brass coupler. The flexi is attached to the bracket with another lock nut.

I don't have anthing attached to the rear suspension. Is this ok does anyone know? Digital Photo attached, used my 0.0001 Mega-pixel camera. :thumb:

Thanks a million

Chedz

[Revets]

Hi Chedz,

As to my problematic nuts, well at least the ones I want to tell you about. I'll post a photo in the next day or so, much easier than trying to explain.

As to your set-up, the brass coupler presumably clamps the female flare of the copper pipe against the male end of the flexi pipe then I reckon you're OK as long as the tester can see a gap between the brass coupler and any locknut you are using to secure the flexi to the bracket (or the bracket itself). In other words he can see you've been able to tighten the brass coupler sufficiently and not prevented from doing so by the locknut being there. Hope that makes sense.

Steve

[chedz]

Super, the gap between my nuts is more than sufficient. Thanks.

[neil still building it]

i guess there'd be 'no problem ' putting on a 1mm nut to secure this hose as long a ''2 threads were showing'' eh???!!!!!! SVA rules -i'm sure common sense should though!!
NEIL