IVA test – Blow by blow.
It was a bit of a mission which started in Plymouth at 04:30
– I obviously wanted to avoid being late for my 08:00 test, and with the
elements of Land Rover, trailer, car, not 100% sure on directions etc: there
was a lot of moving parts in the equation which could be de-risked with an
excess of time. The time was about right, as in the end I only had about 40mins
of heel kicking time waiting for the station to open!
Having loaded the trailer up the night before, and the disco with
all the tools and spares I thought I might need to actually re-build the car from scratch, the morning although early;
went quite smoothly. I even had time to break the diet and go for a McBreakfast.
I
arrived to a bit of a ghost town, and being the only one around
didn’t want to just start unloading in case I upset them, so just sat waiting
for a bit. I remarked at the inappropriate signage as I sat underneath the “SVA
Test Station” sign; although that smirk was later partially revoked when a chap
with some bizarre Harley-type bike rocked up next to me and I remembered that
for motorcycles, SVA is still the current test. D’oh, maybe I’m in the wrong
place then and started wandering around the site looking for the IVA door...
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| "SVA"? What about "IVA"? |
I started to unload (funnily enough I work for the same company as
motorbike guy and we had a brief chat about that, spurned by us both wearing
similar boots that had obviously originated in the same place) and
then some of the VOSA staff started to arrive. At this point they confirmed that I would be
in the same building, they hadn't yet got the new sign - so that was a bit of a relief; and perhaps a full revoke
of smirk wasn’t necessary after all.
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| Biker dude has his turn first |
The tester then arrived about 1min before 0800 and introduced
himself – nice chap from the Manchester VOSA depot as the Exeter guy had been
sick for some time – which was part of the problem of me actually getting the
test in the first place. Straight away he seemed friendly and approachable so I
capitalised on this with some small talk and light humour – definitely worthwhile
as it seemed to pay dividends later in the day.
Shoes and socks.
Bit of a pain but I can’t drive the car in my size 12 gore-tex
safety boots. And with the standard steering wheel, even my teeny racing booty
slippers make it a bit awkward… so I had to do everything in stocking feet.
Which didn’t go down that well with the testers to be fair. But as it’s my car,
designed and built for me; not much they can say or do about it other than
mercilessly mock me at every opportunity. Which I didn’t mind so much, as it
made for a lighter hearted affair.
First up was the obligatory checks – engine, chassis number etc. I
was asked to prove all of these things. I used the V5 of the donor to prove the
age of the engine (which was accepted as the engine numbers matched, although I
photographed the engine number and showed him a print out as it’s a pig to get
to – he was very appreciative of that). I then used my GKD invoice to prove the
chassis number which was also fine.
He asked me if I’d
seen a copy of the IVA test manual – I showed him my dog-eared, grubby, dirty
and thoroughly thumbed through copy; and told him I read it page by page on day
1 and referred to it throughout the build – he was suitably impressed. I think
if you take the test (and therefore his job) seriously; you’re on good footing
straight away.
The number plate
holder on the rear was too small for his regulation number plate holder,
although in fairness it’s designed such that you bend the number plate inwards
a bit, and when it “snaps out” straight again it holds it in the corner… but
“technically” it was too small. So he just said “got a screwdriver? Just take
it off” What a nice chap.
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| Struggling in and out with the lousy bus steering wheel |
Going up in the World
Then it was up in the air on the ramp when two of them
prodded and poked around underneath. He asked about the speedo drive
(presumably because he couldn’t find one) so I told him it was electronically
determined from a pulsed output on the diff. He was fine with that. He had a
chuckle at my use of expanding foam to seal a panel gap, and asked about my
cable tie bases whether they were just stuck on or riveted on (the latter,
obviously). I offered to remove one to show him, but he seemed quite happy. It
was at this point he spotted the first failure point – one of the locknuts on
the wishbone wasn’t done up. Gutted. I blame the 4-wheel alignment place when
they altered the camber, but more fool me for not checking. On the way down
they broke out the bizarre plastic templates, bits of string tied to spirit
levels and plumb bobs etc. I’m familiar with the manual, but they did each test
relatively quickly so it wasn’t always obvious what they were testing for; but
it all seemed to pass fine and I remembered that I’d mocked up most of the
tests myself using the manual as a guide; and they were all fine. The cycle
wing coverage was a bit of an issue, they “only just” met the 30°/50°
regulation. They used to be fine but then I corrected the castor by flipping
the wishbones around and now they rotated back about 5°. But, in his own words
“only just is still good enough”, so all good then J
Then I was let down to ground and he did the speedo
calibration check, which it was evidently fine I think (despite my occasional
requests for feedback throughout the test you just get a “raised eyebrow” or an
“intake of breath through the teeth” so you have to kind of judge as you go
really) Taking it up to 70mph, checking every 10mph for accuracy.
Next up he made me spin it around to the other bay and drive
in and do the emissions (which it failed, gutted) and the headlights (which
were all over the place, but he let me tweak them until they were right). He
did check I’d done them up tight afterwards in a fairly brutal waggling
fashion! He told me not worry about the emissions as we’d have another go later
on (phew). To be fair, holding the revs precisely at 2500rpm was easier said
than done as the engine was wandering quite a lot – I imagine without the extra
load of the PAS, Aircon, alternator powering a million amps of heated seats,
radio etc. The idle speed controller isn’t quite agile enough to achieve it; so
there was a fair bit of minute adjustments to be done, and after 10mins my leg
was nearly numb with pain!!
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| Correcting the car's vision... all without glasses or laser eye surgery |
He then did the braking tests. First up the footbrake, which
was doing the business pretty well, then the handbrake; which it was clear
wasn’t performing anywhere near as good as it should, despite having passed an
MoT previously. They then repeat the test with the engine off, presumably to
see what happens when the servo fails, but as the legend doesn’t have one; I
knew this wouldn’t be a part of the test it could fail on. They then do a check
with a kind of “electronic slipper” which is basically a strain gauge he straps
to his foot and records the braking effort for various amounts of pedal press.
No idea whether the numbers spewing forth from the computer were relatively
good or bad, but it seems to pass OK. Handbrake was a fail though, 16.5%
recorded against a minimum of 18%. He also commented on the fact that I
“haven’t really got a bias bar” which is sort of true in that it doesn’t look
like the traditional one, but you could technically alter the brake bias by
lengthening or shortening the stroke on the respective master cylinder actuators.
I wasn’t going to correct him though as he seemed quite happy :-)
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| Don't BRAKE it, please |
A Weighty Issue
After that he made me drive it over to the other side of the
station where there was a weighbridge – the most antiquated you’ve seen in your
life, balancing little weights on levers and sliding scales. To say the VOSA
station at Exeter is somewhat in need of investment is something of an
understatement for sure! I couldn’t hear what the weight was for axle 1, but
for axle 2 I heard it was 347kg without me in it. I’ll find another weighbridge
on my own some time and finish the job off.
It was then back to the original test station and whilst they went
for a cup of tea he asked for the panel above the fuel tank to be removed as he
wanted to see how the fuel tank was held in and earthed. I half expected this
and thus I used self-tappers to hold the floor in, which paid dividends as it
was only a 5mins job. As it was bolted through the top he was happy about both;
but he then did point out where I’d routed the wiring loom and fuel pipe close
together that was a fail. Fair cop I spose, fuel pipes chafing through a wire
that then leaks and shorts out would be bad news in years to come.
He then did the noise test (99dBA, so a pass... just!) and he took
it for a spin round the centre, I presume to check self-centring and such. When
he came back he revealed that the mirrors were all fairly ineffective, the “interior”
mirror showing mostly sky and the exterior having insufficient adjustment and
only seeing about 1/3 view as a big orange cycle wing. Again, fair shout
really. I’m much taller than he was they were just about OK, but on the lowest
adjustment. I’ll have to think about re-mounting those. He then asked me to
“give it some beans” around the centre to get the temperature up and re-try for
the emissions. As I suspected it passed 2nd time around, much the
same as it was on the MoT. I think the cat really needs to be red-hot before it
becomes effective, more so on this car for some reason. In future it shouldn’t
be too much of an issue as I’ll be driving it to and fro MoTs, just at the
moment it’s trailered everywhere or only does short journeys, which as we all
know isn’t the best for a cat.
After his final look
around the car he spotted a few sharp edges, nuts worked loose, and a nut too
short for its nyloc on the steering column.
Result - Deferred Success
I feel that he was very fair overall – he wasn’t overly picky; nor
was he going through the test manual page by page like I thought he might. In
fact, his prompt of “stuff to test” on VOSA headed paper, was one side of A4,
with similar(ish) categories to the MoT test from what I could see of it. He
gave me a decent chance to put things right during the test, and it was only
when it came to the mirrors and handbrake. E.g. things that might take longer
then ½ hr to rectify; that he basically drew stumps. Had I not had those,
everything else was either tightening nuts or putting edging trim on; which I could
have done. Slightly gutted though, as I could have been the first
straight-through GKD pass!!
I’ll post up a separate update with the failure points and photos
on shortly.
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