Question for the MOT examiners.

[Laird Scooby]

From the gov.uk link kindly and usefully provided by Ruby37 ^^^^^, this useful phrase :

"You do not need to assess the electrical sockets if the attachment brackets have been deliberately made unfit for further use."

In other words, remove the ball hitch permanently and they do not need to assess the towing socket. Problem solved. The brackets can stay as long as it's not immediately possible to bolt the tow ball straight back on. If you can hide the towing socket behind a trim panel, so much the better. They're not allowed to dismantle anything for the test so even if the tester suspects you've done exactly what you've done, they shouldn't be able to fail it.

I still wonder about theirsocket tester and whether Volvos peculiar electrics are showing a problem. I remember a thread where someone had bought a caravan (both car and van were bought brand new) and the lights didn't work on their new Volvo because of some weird anomaly with Volvos electrics.

[Ian21401]

Thank you 37 Ruby and Dave for the detailed information.
We don’t possess a trailer board and don’t have immediate access to the caravan. My checks yesterday were done with test lights ( 5w and 21w ) on individual socket pins which is my normal method which has proven satisfactory in the past to trace a rogue spurious fault.
As we are dealing with a genuine Volvo dealership I would expect their testing equipment to be correct and fit for purpose.
I have contacted the dealer this morning enquiring about any software updates and commenting that it was rather coincidental that the towing electrics failed after they had serviced the car and did the seat belt recall work require any access to the software? The front of house contact advised that 1) the software would have been accessed to update the service interval but she was unable to state whether any other updates may have been done and 2) the seat belt recall work would not have required any access to the software. She stated that she will check further and call us back in due course.

[Laird Scooby]

Fingers crossed it's something as simple as that Ian!

Cars have been over-complicated with all this CANBus stuff causing too many problems! Who would have thought back in the 1980s when Bill Gates and the then CEO of GM were in a business conference and Bill Gates said if cars had devloped at the rate computers had, they would do 1000mph and 1000mpg to which the GM CEO responded "Maybe,, but would you want your car to crash 3 times a day?"

Words along those lines anyway, i don't remember the exact quote. Scary how it seems to have come true though!

[Ian21401]

Thanks Dave.
Not heard anything yet. Whatever it is I think that the only choice is to return it to the dealer to sort and if it is not as simple as that pay an extortionate amount for whatever work is done. Now, before taking the car back to the dealer, we have to remove the crash proof dog cage, which occupies the entire load area, to permit access to the rear electrical centre and under the load area floor to the wiring if it becomes necessary.

[Clan]

Originally Posted by Ian21401

How much of the tow hitch and associated wiring needs to be removed to negate the requirement to test the hitch and wiring at MOT?
Would removing the tow ball and wiring socket and tucking the wiring back into the body of the car suffice?

From The MOT Testers Manual from which the testers themselves have to determine what to actually do :



You don't need to assess the electrical sockets if the attachment brackets have been deliberately made
unfit for further use.
You don't need to assess the trailer electrical socket if you need tools or specialist equipment to remove
access panels in the bumper or bodywork to gain access to the socket.
A trailer electrical socket with a defective or missing cover flap that incorporates a lug and spring to hold
the plug in place isn’t considered to be a defect.
On vehicles fitted with a trailer 13 pin Euro-socket, use an approved device to check that the socket is
wired to correctly operate the trailer:
• position lamps
• stop lamps
• direction indicators
• rear fog lamp

[S60D5-185]

Originally Posted by Ian21401

Thanks Dave.
Not heard anything yet. Whatever it is I think that the only choice is to return it to the dealer to sort and if it is not as simple as that pay an extortionate amount for whatever work is done. Now, before taking the car back to the dealer, we have to remove the crash proof dog cage, which occupies the entire load area, to permit access to the rear electrical centre and under the load area floor to the wiring if it becomes necessary.

Ian, there are numerous threads on the internet about this very thing and the upshot of it was that the test equipment being used by the testing facility was entirely inadequate and incapable of working correctly with a vehicle that has a modern canbus system on it.

One guy got a fail just like yours and plugged his own trailer board in at the test centre but the tester said that was not good enough and the fails stood.

Jobsworth on that occasion.

Personally, I would get a trailer board with 13 pin socket and see if everything is working. The situation you have here is that you could be chasing your arse for no good reason if in fact all of your electrics are fine but the dedicated test equipment is not.

Read this from page 1


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[Ian21401]

Thanks S60D5.
We have not had any reply yet from the dealer. I’ve just called them and been advised that they haven’t forgotten, but have been extremely busy so do not yet have an answer for me.
We have dropped the back seats and moved the dog crate forward to permit access to underneath the load area floor and the trailer wiring. I fitted the towing electrics to my own old 940 some time ago and understand what I did and why, but having viewed the towing electrics on this XC70 I need someone to explain what I am looking at. I wouldn’t know what to check first Thanks for that link.
When the vehicle examiner first advised us of the problem he did state that he was looking for the old trailer test board but couldn’t locate it. That seems to indicate that he had doubts about the board that he was using.
We have considered taking the car to storage to couple it up to the van, but as VOSA has been updated as ‘Dangerous Fail” we think that that would be illegal use of the car and knowing our luck at present we would be caught out by ANPR as there are a few cameras along the route.

[S60D5-185]

Originally Posted by Ian21401

Thanks S60D5.
We have not had any reply yet from the dealer. I’ve just called them and been advised that they haven’t forgotten, but have been extremely busy so do not yet have an answer for me.
We have dropped the back seats and moved the dog crate forward to permit access to underneath the load area floor and the trailer wiring. I fitted the towing electrics to my own old 940 some time ago and understand what I did and why, but having viewed the towing electrics on this XC70 I need someone to explain what I am looking at. I wouldn’t know what to check first Thanks for that link.
When the vehicle examiner first advised us of the problem he did state that he was looking for the old trailer test board but couldn’t locate it. That seems to indicate that he had doubts about the board that he was using.
We have considered taking the car to storage to couple it up to the van, but as VOSA has been updated as ‘Dangerous Fail” we think that that would be illegal use of the car and knowing our luck at present we would be caught out by ANPR as there are a few cameras along the route.

Ian, your car will almost certainly have dedicated Volvo Towing electrics.

You need to look in the boot. Raise the floor and remove the little left hand rear cubby hole.

You should see a black towing module that plugs into the fuse board in the same location.

They are all plug and play.

If you have the genuine kit they are incredibly reliable and I would say even more indication that you need to plug a separate trailer board in and satisfy yourself that the issue is with the dealers equipment.

For your info I always use Autofix at Silverlink for work and MOT's.

Great garage and know Volvo inside out.

[Ian21401]

Thanks S60D5. Mill Scotswood are not being very helpful. I’ve just called them again as they haven’t called us yet and been advised that there would not have been any software updates that would affect the trailer wiring and wouldn’t offer any further information.
We’ve used Autofix in the past for one off jobs so we’ll try contacting them tomorrow.
I have learned a bit more about the wiring in our car and will post this later if I can.

[S60D5-185]

Originally Posted by Ian21401

Thanks S60D5. Mill Scotswood are not being very helpful. I’ve just called them again as they haven’t called us yet and been advised that there would not have been any software updates that would affect the trailer wiring and wouldn’t offer any further information.
We’ve used Autofix in the past for one off jobs so we’ll try contacting them tomorrow.
I have learned a bit more about the wiring in our car and will post this later if I can.

Brian is the boss there.

Why not cut your losses and book it in for a retest there without touching a thing. Prebooked test is the get out of jail card.

Common sense and arsehole free establishment.

I wouldn't entertain using the bunch of clowns that have given you this much hassle ever again.