Topic

I thought it would be good to write a guide on how to pass an MOT, based upon a recent experience where my perfectly good MGF failed! I found the cause of the (non) problem it failed on, and it passed in a re-test. There are probably other things that catch people (including me) out, so I thought it would be good for everyone to post MOT passing wisdom and experience for all to see and use!

My failure
"Power Steering failure"
Having been called up to say the car had failed, and being surprised it had failed on the power steering, I asked specifics on what had failed. They kindly got back to me and said that the power steering warning light was on - which is a fail, as it indicates a power steering failure. At this point I was happy with the garage, and slightly annoyed at my MGF. I know it has the potential to be temperamental, but frustrated that it had decided to start being temperamental at the exact same time as having an MOT test!
My main frustration was that as I drove the car back home to look at it, there was no sigh of a power steering failure at all. The warning light went off when the car was started and the power steering felt normal. There was nothing to fix.

My Solution to the non-problem
In this case a solution turned out to be one of understanding rather than one of fixing. I checked the page in the MGF owners manual on warning lights and found a footnote which provided a lot of insight:


So the light will also illuminate if the engine is revved at "high speeds" for over 30 seconds whilst stationary. I wonder if that is the sort of thing they do in MOT tests...
Turns out it is, for heating the engine up and for emissions tests.
So I got into my MGF and revved it with a timer on my phone, and 32 seconds later, the power steering light came on!


I explained this to the garage, and they agreed that was probably the cause of the light. The (free) re-test passed!
The way to reset the power steering light is to drive forwards until some speed appears on your speedo. Then the power steering should turn back on, you will notice the difference!

I hope this helps someone, please post below any MOT tips and tricks for others to use.
Louis

Yeah, if the engine is run at over 2500 rpm for over 30 seconds the EPAS ECU switches off to protect the motor on the steering column from overheating.

I believe it was designed as more of a safety feature in case of a snapped speedo cable... You don't want to have someone with power steering going motorway speeds!

-Louis

My cable snapped recently so the speedo was cutting in and out, sometimes activating the EPAS at 50 which was more than scary, especially with mismatched tyres including a Pirelli P6000! I haven't driven the car since.