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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGB Technical - Halfords MOT

Half price at £27 if you book online, compared to £36 if you have AA membership. However if you read the Ts&Cs it says you are committed to paying £27 for the MOT " plus any other extra costs needed to pass the test due to MOT failure". Call me suspicious, but that says to me you will not be able to bring the car home if it fails, fix it, then book a retest, but will have to pay them to fix it.
PaulH Solihull

I wouldn't let Halfords within a mile of any of my cars. Not only are there prices for parts a joke, they are obviously going to rip off some poor soul big style.
john wright

These people have targets to meet and will find some reason or another to fleece you big style. They are completely unscrupulous when it comes to claiming faults and should be avoided at all costs. I normally pay the full rate which I think is £54 to a small independent local garage, the guy fully understands what he is looking at and is completely happy with slight front wheel bearing movement / king pin lift etc.

I never have any questions asked and never have any advises.
Iain MacKintosh

My other half decided to take her car to Halfords Autocentre two years ago for a half price MoT. I told her to expect it to fail. No-one was more surprised than me when it passed.

Last year she took it again - different car to the year before - it passed, with a couple of advisories.

It's booked in for another half price MoT next Wednesday. I gave it a once-over last week, so I'm hoping for another pass.
Dave O'Neill 2

I always go to a test only place here. A member of the club made the mistake of taking his TF to Halfords and they charged £400 to replace the rear calipers. They also swapped the pads and discs. The self adjusting mechanism on these cars is a well known weak point. When one of mine failed I got 2 new ones for £70 each. Its about an hour each side as the clevis pins on the cables corrode on.
Stan Best

Like Dentists, Vets and Solicitors, MOT garages are likely to tout for business. There are stations that just do MOTs and no repairs, I take mine there now, although they do charge the full whack.
A few years ago when my MG was laid up I would still take it for an MOT to a garage that was about two hundred yards away, each year they would fail it on headlamp adjustment and charge me a fiver to correct them there and then without issuing a failure certificate.
c cummins

Despite starting this thread I have been taking all my cars to Halfords for years. Only once have I been surprised - charged for headlight realignment when it had already been tested by them before, although I had changed a dip bulb in the meantime. Talking to people in America this ploy is standard practice at every test, and I certainly wouldn't take my car to a place more than twice if they tried it on with me. On the other side of the coin the tester wired in an earth at no charge to my (after-market) off-side high-intensity rear-light when he found it not working, and last year when both weren't working (OK, I have a blind-spot about testing those lights) he only mentioned it in passing saying as it didn't originally have them and neither was working he ignored it.
PaulH Solihull

This thread was discussed between 11/06/2011 and 12/06/2011

MG MGB Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGB Technical BBS is active now.