John MacDonald: Our WOF system does need an upgrade

I don’t know about you, but whenever I take a car in for a warrant I invariably decide to stick around and head straight to the waiting area.

And if it’s at one of those places where you can see the workshop, I try to resist watching - but I can’t help it.

So I see my car at the front of the queue, and I watch one of the inspectors grab the keys off the board and make their way up to it. I say “make their way up to it” because no one’s ever in a hurry at these places, are they?

Cars queued out onto the street. More and more people streaming into the waiting area. But a warrant is not something to be rushed.

And so, once the inspector in the overalls gets behind the wheel, they crank the car up, drive into the workshop and slams on the brakes. I’m watching and I think ‘that stopped pretty quickly, that’ll be a tick for the brakes. Surely. Hopefully'.

And it’s at this point where the imagination cranks into full gear. I watch them go underneath with their torches to inspect the chassis and I imagine that they’re seeing the worst case of vehicle rust they’ve ever seen. The kind of thing they’ll talk about for years.

I know the rust isn’t there but I imagine that suddenly the whole thing’s full of it. And then I see them looking in the wheel area and imagine that they can see the axle is about to split in half or one of the wheels is about to fall off.

And so on and so on. I just can’t help myself. And I think the worst possible scenarios the whole time.

Because you hear stories, don’t you? Someone goes for a warrant and walks out facing a repair bill worth hundreds, if not thousands.

So all this turmoil is going on in my head and I’m trying to look cool as anything, and I toy with the idea of sitting down and flicking through that Hot Rod magazine on the table next to the water cooler, but I can’t do it.

I just stare through the glass at the trainwreck happening right in front of me. Well, the trainwreck happening in my head.

Then, after what seems like forever, the car is driven out of the workshop and parked out the back somewhere. And one of the inspectors picks up the clipboard and heads in my direction.

Well, kind of in my direction. They head back into the office. But why haven’t they come straight into the waiting area?

I knew, I knew it. The inspector isn’t in the waiting room because they’re behind the counter in the office writing the full list of all the things wrong with the car.

Fail, fail, fail. I knew it. I could just tell from that serious look on the chops. Oh, this is not going to be good.

And then they appear - they’re coming down the hallway to the waiting area. Look calm John. Look calm.

And everything goes slow motion. Like time is almost standing still. Just tell me, just tell me. I know it’s gonna cost thousands. Just tell me.

And then they speak: “The blue Toyota.”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“Ah, everything’s pretty good. Just keep an eye on the front left tyre - might need replacing before the next warrant. But you’re good to go”

And, at that point, I just want to kiss them.

Sound familiar to you? It’s a scene that plays out day in-day out. The Warrant of Fitness check. A process or a system that the Motor Trade Association is saying needs an overhaul.

It’s put a challenge out to whoever forms the next government to take a serious look at the way we check whether the vehicles on our roads are up to scratch. It thinks we are way too slack.

One of its main bones of contention is the fact that old rust buckets don't have to be checked-over any more often than modern vehicles. And I agree - it’s nutbar, isn’t it?

It says the stats show that 46 percent of vehicles fail their warrant first time around. And the state of our vehicles is a much greater cause of fatal crashes than it used to be.So it wants six-monthly warrants for older cars. And I think