Testing times
I don’t know why but the National Car Test really winds me up.
It’s an annual circus that hits me around February and it involves a fair bit of jiggling around with the calendar.
You see, the cunts in the NCT centres test for just about everything imaginable and each year they seem to throw in more and more items that will doom my vehicle to failure. The fuckers even want me to wash the underside of the car. How the fuck am I supposed to do that without an inspection pit and a pressure washer?
Anyhows, I usually forestall the NCT’s efforts by getting Spanner to give it the once over beforehand. If anyone knows how to tweak a car to pass all those insane tests, then Spanner does. I swear he taught VW how to fiddle their emissions tests.
But before I let loose Spanner on my trusty steed I have to clean out the inside first as otherwise he’ll do it and charge me a fair belt for the privilege. The car has to be almost spotless before the delicate little fairies in the NCT will go near it, and that includes dog hairs. I had a stand up row with them one year because they complained there were too many dog hairs and they only tested it after I challenged them to explain how a few hairs made the car unroadworthy.
And here is where I have my problem.
The car is due to be tested by the 11th of next month. I haven’t booked it in yet as I had to find out when Spanner was available. I can’t book him too late or I’ll miss my NCT spot and if I book him too early the car will probably have developed some little niggle by the test date, and definitely the dog will have plastered the seats with hairs again. And there is also the small point that I don’t know how long he’ll keep the car.
So I have booked Spanner for next week which means I have to clean out the car first. If I clean it too early I have the problem of Penny furring up the place again so I have to leave it as late as possible. Our Penny can generate unbelievable amounts of hairs in an incredibly short time. I reckon she sheds around twice her volume every week, and that’s not even in the moulting season.
But the weather forecast implied that our weather was going to be a tad iffy by the weekend so I have to clean out the car today. Not a job I relish.
I should have the car clean by tonight, or Saturday by the latest [there is one heck of a load of hairs to shift], and then Spanner is welcome to it. As soon as he returns it I can book the test. And then I will have a happy hour ahead of me at the test centre standing outside in the wind while I wait and they try to find any petty fault they can think of [why are industrial estates always cold and windy?].
It’s no wonder I hate the NCT!
Given the title, I thought this would be about Trump. 🙂 Good luck on the test, Grandad. We don’t have inspections in my state, but many other states still do it.
Hah! I just checked – I have mentioned your esteemed leader just once in the last ten years. I must be just about unique on the entire planet in that respect?
You wouldn’t get a test down south at such short notice. It must be because you are ‘somebody’. Anyway you should go away and ‘rent’ one of these new Korean yokes that most of Ireland are driving now. You can forget about the three Ts, tax, ( test and tyres) for a while.
They have a note on my computer file –
“This headcase is a narkey old bollix. Deal with him quick or he’ll cause a scene”
Or at least, I hope that’s what it says.
Those same twats are here also. They cunningly go by the initials ITV Inspección Técnica de VehÃculos, but are the same jumped up little jobsworths. I sweat bullets every time I have to take my 17 year old car there.
In principle, the test is a reasonable idea. There used to be cars on the road with broken lights and bald tyres and the like but they are a rarity nowadays. What really pisses me off is all the additional crap they test for. Since when did exhaust emissions make a car unroadworthy, or even fucking dog hairs? If the car in front of me is belching so much smoke that I can’t see, I just pull back a bit. No danger there?
Spain works on the principle that everything is prohibited, except that which is allowed. There is always a whiff of anarchy about the place. Therefore one chooses ones test centre with care, as some are not as strict as others.
Clean out the car? How very….quaint. Here in the only-200miles-from-the-civilized world we has gangs of illiterate itinerant Eastern Europeans in knock off primark track suits what wash and mini-valet your car for no more than fifteen shiny pounds of the realm…our local motley crew even throw in a free (yes i said “ABSOLUTELY FREE”) air-deniffifying picture of some fruit. But WAIT there’s more! In the warm weather (ie one afternoon in late June) they do bring along their lady friends who fondle the high pressure squirty things (ooooh ah vicar!) wearing nothing but skimpy bikinis, which seem to get the more translucent the more cars they wash. Watching some nubile 18 year Rumanian girl apply an industrial Henry to my seats, watching her suck …in as near to her birthday suit as my aged heart.and public decency laws will allow, has to be better than trying to find an extension cable to run out to the car myself.
Can you send ’em back over here? We had millions of ’em around during the boom years but exported most of ’em again when we went bust. Just apologise to em for me and they can even keep their sniffy dangly things [hate the smell of those yokes]. Let me know when they are coming so I can send Herself away somewhere where she won’t see the fondling ladies.
Some car owners consider the NCT test to be a convenient way of finding out what Fail faults (mortal sins) and what minor faults (venial sins) the vehicle has. They then cheerfully take the computer print-out from the testing centre to their neighbourhood garage and let the mechanics go down the print-out list, absolving the mortal sins with spanners, jackhammers and lubricants. Owners instruct them to wash away the venial sins only if there is no need for expensive replacement parts. Then the car is ready for a second, successful test, within a few weeks if there is no waiting list. Drivers then drive home, feeling forgiven.
I am tempted to go down that route but I know the poor old banger would fail the emissions test. [I’m talking car, not Herself. Though maybe on second thoughts….?]. I hate the journey and I hate hanging around the place – did I mention it’s always cold and windy? – so I would rather avoid a second trip.
I rather like the venial sins recorded on my last test.
001 Parking brake lever modified, but not inappropriately (Chewed by dog) (3.1.8)
002 (Gear knob has sharp edges caused by chewing)
A friend recently bought an old car from another friend, who happens to keep goats as pets on common grazing land astride a hilly ridge. The NCT doesn’t come up for another year, but there is a scent of goat in the rear of the car. I wonder if the NCT computer will note that? Thankfully the goats never chewed my friend’s upholstery, so there’s no exposed spring irritating anybody’s arse.
I’m just waiting for them to fail my car “because of the smell of tobacco smoke”. It’s only a matter of time.
With this guy as a regular passenger, you’re bound to fail the NCT.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cregagh/1142045036
But at least you’ve got a smart passenger.