An NCT certificate is not a substitute for vetting a second hand car

Brendan Burgess

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I just saw the end of this on Prime Time last night and it's covered in today's papers

NCT passes ‘unroadworthy’ car as fit for the road

Dublin woman could be as much as €10,000 out of pocket after buying a car passed by the NCT which turned out to be a write-off
www.irishtimes.com

The woman bought a car and assumed it was ok because it had an NCT certificate.

It turned out to have been in a serious crash and had been welded together badly. The NCT reviewed it afterwards and agreed it was not safe on the road.

They were all critical of the NCT.

The NCT does hundreds of thousands of cars every year, so serious mistakes will be made.

But they are not a substitute for getting the car vetted by an engineer.

But anyway, even if you use your own mechanic to look at a car, he could well miss something serious.
 
Ah, Prime Time covered this exact issue in 2006

Advice needed:Second Hand car passed NCT but transpires had been in a crash.

I bought a second half car in Nov 05 from car dealer, 3 months warranty on all parts and any mechanical problems. Also got a guarantee that they would fix anything that didn't pass nct. It did pass nct. The car had a few dents and scrapes on it so I decided to get same fixed. Bought car to new...
www.askaboutmoney.com
 
Dr Strangelove said:
I’m a bit puzzled as to why the main focus of the story is on the NCT and not the dealership which sold a car which had been written off!
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The dealership, I think they said, had closed down and there was a new dealership business at the location. Sounded like getting compensation from them was off the table.

If claims like this againgst NCT work - then the NCT fee is going to have to rise to cover the extra insurance they'll need.
 
What does the term "dealership" actually mean though , it seems to be used to give a false sense of security when buying. In reality it may be no better than buying private.
 
JoeRoberts said:
The NCT need to print a large disclaimer in bold on the certificate
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It is fairly clear:

This certificate relates only to the condition of the testable items at the time of the test. The Certificate should not be regarded as a warranty, express or implied under common law or at all.

Maybe it should also say something like "This certificate should not be used by the purchaser of a car as a substitute for their own inspection of the car."
 
Her point was that the test was 3 days previous. So a focus on the "at the time part of the disclaimer" is reasonable. Not clear to me whether the botched repair job was a testable item though.
 
It's important that the NCT is also criticised in these scenarios though. They passed a car they shouldn't have passed, a car that very obviously should not have passed.
There needs to a furore about such things so that the NCT operators are as vigiliant as they can be about that.
 
It's not reasonable as a passed NCT test cert clearly does not represent a warranty and never has.

This isn't hard.
 
odyssey06 said:
It's important that the NCT is also criticised in these scenarios though. They passed a car they shouldn't have passed.
There needs to a furore about such things so that the NCT operators are as vigiliant as they can be about that.
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How many tests did they do last year?
How many do they get wrong?

I would say it's a very rare occurrence and when it does happen, they would review it.

They do a few thousand second checks themselves. Every employee has a few of his reports retested every year.

And they get the AA to independently test some as well.

Brendan
 
"Don't overestimate people's grasp of English."

Some people's pretend stupidity is not NCT's (nor Currys') problem.
 
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