I should never have doubted

The MG passed its ITV yesterday. The ITV is the equivalent of the MOT back in Blighty. It cost 39.90€ to get that little sticker but I think it was money well spent.

The test centres are huge hangar shaped buildings with a number of entrances - one for HGVs and coaches, one for motorbikes, another for cars etc. In the MG's case we went into lane 5 at the Redovan test centre. Each test centre is a private enterprise.

In the first bay they checked noise levels, emissions, headlight alignment, all the lights, horn, indicators, wipers etc as well as technical details like the body number. From there we basically drove in a straight line stopping at a couple of stations along the way. The first one is a rolling road, where the front wheels were dropped into the rollers and the brakes tested. They did the same with the back wheels on both the footbrake and handbrake, they checked the speedo worked. Onwards we to drove over a pit where the wheels were set onto a moving plate which jiggled the front wheels around whilst the man went down the pit to check the various joints and linkages. I had to turn the steering wheel back and forth whilst the man shone his torch at the steering set up from underneath. He checked brakepipes, suspension linkages, tyres, exhaust and general underbody whilst he was down there. That was it. I had to wait whilst the man wandered around a bit, brought his colleague to look at the car and then went back to a little podium in the hangar where he wrote out the paperwork. He called me over.

Me: "I suppose it failed"
Him: "No, no problems, the emissions were good for such an old car, carburation is spot on"
Me: "Great, excellent, I'm hoping to do it up this year"
Him: "Yes it's a bit rusty"

And so we were through. Reading the paperwork afterwards it does say that the bodywork has some(!) rust and that it should be fixed before the next test.

We drove home up the road like that Muslim Guardian Angel I read about who greets you dancing and singing in the morning.