Originally Posted by
Saracen
Maybe. Maybe not.
Years ago, I had a car MOT'd by the local main dealer for that brand. They told me it needed more than £2000 of work doing. I took it out of that dealer, drove it about 2 miles to a local (reputable) independent MOT station and it passed without fault. When I showed the guy that had just passed it what the main dealer had failed it on, he commented that most of it was ridiculous, some of the failures weren't even part of the MOT on that design of car, and recommended that I complain and get it tested again by the Department of Transport themselves, at a regional centre, because it "wasn't the first time" he'd seen that kind of thing from a main dealer.
I've also had plenty of anecdotal evidence from friends in the car trade that suggests that, while perhaps not commonplace, such events aren't exactly rare, either.
Oh, and that £2000 was probably about what the car was worth, and when the reception guy at the dealer that failed it gave me the failure certificate, he actually had the effrontery, and I kid you not, to point out that their second-hand car sales office was just round the corner!