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Last Updated :
June 2006

Single Vehicle Approval 

After a Full week of frenzied activity the morning of the SVA (13th !) dawned, it was cloudy but dry, This was the First time that I had legally driven the car on normal roads with other traffic, so having left a fair bit of rubber on the junction to the main road I decided that caution was going to the order of the day.

On Arrival at the VI I had to wait about 20 min (I was early!) for the inspector to have his morning cuppa and find his clipboard, I was then told to proceed to Lane 1, The inspector arrived shortly afterwards. On with the Test.

PART 1 - Outside

The 1st item on the agenda was to confirm the vehicle identity by checking that the chassis number was the same as on the application, No problem there. Next up was to confirm the engine number and age, this being one of things that I was concerned about, as the age of the engine block was how shall I put this.... Is dubious so having "mislaid" the ford identity I had a mate in the trade write a receipt to state that the engine was removed from a 1992 Escort and here was our 1st failure point. The number stamped (poorly!) on the block ended in 7, the one on the receipt ended in 2, so I had a fail in the first 2 minutes. The examiner did not look too convinced by all this, which didn't really surprise me.

The Tape measure then came out to check the height of all mandatory lights, I had been a bit worried as one of the front indicators was only just high enough, but the examiner said everything was OK as was the separation between stop and fog lights. All lamps where also checked for E-marks and he now noted that the fog lamp was in fact a brake light which would be OK provided it was bright enough ( It wasn't ). 

The Examiner then had a good look around the car and had a quick feel of anything that could be a projection, at this point he discovered a couple of sharp edges on the headlamp adjusters so that was failure number 2. 

He then asked me to remove one of the front wheel nuts so that he could check that there was sufficient thread  left after fitting the 19mm wheel spacers, having brought everything but a 17mm socket I nipped off to borrow one from a nearby garage. I removed one  wheel nut and he checked the amount of thread (20+mm) using a biro, I suggested that I might remove a upper seatbelt mounting while I had the correct spanner to which he agreed.

Next it was a quick assessment of the interior. I presented the car with bare ally tunnel but I had filed off all sharp edges so he had a quick fumble around the tunnel and sides of the car and then the under dash area at which point he found the Ally ECU bracket and management fuse box both of which had sharp edges but I thought where out of the way, failure No 3.

The seatbelts where examined for E marks which they had (Sabelt) but he then spotted that not all of the bolts holding the roll bar to the chassis where High tensile ( They must have been mixed up in the box !) He also did not like the fact the the rear legs of the roll bar where not bolted through the chassis, Failure 4

PART 2 - Workshop

I was now asked to drive the car into the workshop onto the Ramp and to remain in the car while he checked underneath, while I pressed the brake, Waggled the steering etc, he then produced a F****g great bar to apply pressure to various points on the front suspension checking for play in balljoints etc. Moving along the car he then checked the fuel and brake lines, handbrake and rear suspension. He did not like the position of the fuel pump which was about 40mm away from the brake pipe on the axle - Failure No 5.

The car was then lowered down to the ground and he invited me to have a look at the Fuel pump problem which I was a bit skeptical about but decided not to argue. He then checked all lights for operation, headlight alignment (one light slightly too low - not bad for a guess which he rectified anyway ), Scrutiny returned to my fog light which was deemed a bit Dim compared with the very bright stop lamps Failure No 6. All warning lamps where also checked at this point ( I had stuck Dymo labels on to identify the LEDS ).

It now was straight onto the weighing machine to record the weight of each axle and then back onto the same set of rollers for the brake tests, The operational (MOT Type)  test was OK with very little axle imbalance, but the SVA test was a different story - the brakes worked well, too well the rear disks where nearly as effective as the front ones despite having EBC pads up front and standard ones on the rear there was only 10Kg difference between front and back brake effort Whoops.. Fail 7

He now asked me to start the engine and get it up to running temp while he measured the wheelbase etc, after idling at 2000 revs for a few mins the stat opened and he asked for the engine to be left at idle. The CO level was OK a 0.6% the HC however was a staggering 2500 ppm !, the engine revs where increased to 2000 by which time the HC had dropped to 140 which was a pass as long as I could prove that the engine was of 1992 Vintage .. Ahem...

It was now time to adjourn for a quick cup of tea, before which we had a quick recap on what was wrong so far and how to solve each problem.

Onto the Next set of rollers for the Speedometer check, having explained that if it was wrong I could easily adjust it. It proved to be either spot on or within 3 MPH so my pulses/mile calculations where spot on (which I already Knew as we had checked the speedo against a GPS).

The Examiner the took the car for a drive around to car park to check that the steering self centers and that the car drives OK which it did.

The car was now parked in the mirror test area to do the exhaust noise check which it passed with no problem 4000RPM was 85Db, the loud crackle after taking his foot off only registered 92! On with the Mirror test after spending 10 mins arranging cones etc. it took about 30 seconds to realise that this was a fail, the interior mirror offers a excellent view of the Roll over bar and not much else so a nearside mirror was required.

The car was returned to the car park while the examiner did all the paperwork and put all the figures etc through the computer, 35mins later I had a Refusal to issue a MAC form, A valid MOT certificate and a bill for another £15.

Summary of Failures :

1. Proof of engine Age required ( with correct number on it )
2. Top seat belt mountings of inadequate strength
3. Non radius edges to various components under NS Dash panel
4. Rear fog insufficient intensity.
5. Interior mirror does not meet requirement for angles of visibility, no NS mirror fitted
6. Sharp edges to headlamps
7. Rear Fuel pump hose may foul brake line on Full suspension deflection
8. Brake Distribution Criteria not met
9. Declared weights incorrect ???

The car failed on Wednesday morning by Thursday evening we had resolved all of the problems and would have been ready for retest on Friday, However we where unable to get the brakes to bleed so having spent two days working every spare hour we had to give up at the last hurdle.

Problems rectified (and How ! )

1. Engine Receipt re-written with correct number
2. Roll bar bolts replace with High Tensile (8.8) and new rear mounting added (photo)
3. Ally panel gaff taped over ECU and fuse box.
4. Square E marked fog fitted on bracket in place of original (photo).
5. Nearside mirror added.
6. Headlamp covers fitted.
7. Fuel Pump Moved (Photo)
8. Modified Mini brake proportioning valve fitted (photo) (more info)
9. Total weight changed from 950Kg to 900Kg

THE RETEST !

The Retest was booked for Tuesday of the following week, I had rebleed the brakes the previous evening and gone on a short road test Even under heavy Mid bend braking I could not get the back to step out But the pedal feel that was a bit spongy was now even worse as some of the braking effort is now compressing a spring !.

The Retest took much the same order as the original although I had a different examiner, The 1st check was again the Engine number and again the examiner was not overly convinced, he took a copy of the receipt and moved on to the sharp bits, Headlight covers where OK although he had a good feel of the fixings. he than asked me where the sharp edges had been under the dash so I showed him, He also wanted to know what was wrong with the seat belt mountings. He then checked the new Fog lamp which he said worked OK but looked a bit silly... So Far so good.

The car was now moved onto the ramp to check the fuel line problem had been resolved and that the Roll bar was bolted through the chassis correctly. No Problem. He also checked that the Bias valve connections where Ok and that there where no Hydraulic leaks. We had to stop for break at this point as a Imported Rover 214 was using the brake tester.

Eventually the Rover moved on so it was now crunch time had I suitably reduced rear brake effort ?. The functional test looked OK the rear brake effort was ~200 compared to ~280 at the front, There did seem to be an imbalance on the rear axle of about 25%. Moving swiftly onto the SVA brake test. at maximum pedal effort (500 Newtons) the rear braking effort was down from 140 to 125 on the O/S and 90 on the nearside which looked OK. I'm not sure Where the imbalance is coming from but the spring platform on the O/S was wound further up putting more weight on that wheel without the weight of the driver.

The car was then moved outside to check the new Mirror. After about 5 mins of moving the mirrors about the examiner declared " That's OK but there is no way that mirror will stay like that !, Please put the car in the car park while I put the figures through the computer". I attempted to move the car and promptly snapped the gearlever in two where I had welded it By now the examiner was out of the way and I'd got it into 1st so I'd got away with it.

15mins later I had the MAC in my hand !. I took the car home as I could only get 1st and 2nd gear. I didn't realise that you spend £200+ getting a bit of paper not dissimilar to a MOT and then the DVLA take it off you again !, however they did photocopy it when requested. Anyway its now on the road so I've just got a few teething problems to sort out.

Conclusions :

The test is not as bad as I had expected, the examiners where fair but not too strict although I get the impression that not all testing stations are like this.

If I do it again (Unlikely) I think I would just get the car somewhere near using common sense and then just submit it to see what else needs doing. Otherwise you just end up going around in circles looking for possible problems that the testers may not even see. And as I found out there are certain things ( weights, Brake performance and emissions ) that you cannot really check for yourself anyway.

SSC STYLUS Post SVA and fully legal !