IVA Test 1...Fail... But could be worse

Now if you had asked me before I went whether my car would pass the IVA I would have told you that the chance of success was about 5%. Still, when I struggled out of bed yesterday morning at 6.45, having got two hours sleep, I must say I had my fingers well and truly crossed.

The day before I had taken the train down from Nottingham and I had intended to do a few finishing alterations before the big day. It was about 7.30 in the evening when I removed the Rear RHS wheel, with the intention of bleeding the brake system, only to find, to my immediate despair, that the wheel had been rubbing on the back of the rear light assembly. It had almost worn through the back of the casing and it had torn into the wires that supplied it with power. To make matters worse the rear wishbone assembly was for some reason loose. I must say I was the nearest I have been to panicking since the temperature sender incident. I phoned Paul my old DT teacher who very kindly turned around midway through his journey home to help out. I was going to have to do some real work on it to get it fixed so I was going to need to drive it down to the  other garage, because, as you may remember, it was currently in storage in a friend's garage. We drove in convoy and Paul stayed until 11.30 helping out. We redesigned the light housing and vacuum formed a new part bringing the light further out from the rear wing cycles. My Dad brought down some food to sustain me through the night. Paul bled the brake system, and I fitted the lights, the wishbones just needed a little tighten and were good to go. At about 3.30 I packed up and headed home to get the necessary papers together and as much sleep as I could fit in. Crisis averted.

Old Setup

New Setup

I was already late when we got down to the garage. However, the greater concern at that point was not my tardy arrival but that of my hired tow truck. A breakdown in communication when making the order meant that he arrived at quarter past, rather than quarter to seven. At that time in the morning we reckoned the journey to the test centre was going to take about an hour and this relatively small mistake had the predicted implications, we were 15 minutes late rather than early. To make matters worse our tester had clearly woken that very morning with mindset similar to that of a stubborn mule and an attitude so negative that it would have made Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh seem like a cheery fellow. Moaning about the fact we were late he strolled up to the trailer and began to pick faults.

He failed it before it had been unloaded from the trailer, on design "faults" that were not even written on the IVA inspection guidelines. However with my severely battered morale hidden beneath the best facade of happy go lucky nonchalance that I could muster,  we unloaded and began the test. And quite soon the faults that had been frivolously thrown around upon arrival seemed to become disproven or of very little significance, sure there were a number of failure points but these I had been expecting and the torrent that preceded had somehow been quelled leaving a trickle of very manageable and justified fail points. Some were as minor as the need to tighten a nut slightly, or a missing split pin.

The test ran its course for 5 hours and at the end my initially miserable instructor and I were on quite good form. The list of errors fit onto a page and it was time to head home.

Below is the list of failures:

-Noise Level too high. Test requirement is sub 99db, mine was 100.8

-Petrol emissions too high in Hydrocarbons and CO2 (needs tuning)

-Rear Number plate screws line with fuel tank

-Steering column touches engine mount

-Interior mirror is too sharp

-Sticker indicating brake fluid filler missing

-Air intake too sharp

-Wishbone bracket too sharp

-Side repeaters too sharp

-VIN plate missing

-Fog lamp tell-tail light not visible from driving position

-Wires need grommets in certain places

-Design weights were underestimates on the application form so certificate of weighing is required

-Fastening nuts on wishbones need tightening

-Castle nuts on steering assembly needs a split pin

There was also some talk of fixing other sharps around the rear of the vehicle but there is no note on the failure form. All in all its not too much of a disappointment.