Reading BBC news earlier, I came across another example of lamentable reporting involving bugger all facts and contorted conclusions.
Introducing the article itself (emphasis mine) :
An undercover investigation into UK car garages suggests the vast majority miss simple mechanical faults, consumer watchdog Which? has said.
Which? took cars with four deliberate faults to 62 firms including both franchises and independent sites.
Some 87% missed at least one problem, such as a deflated spare tyre or low brake fluid. All the faults were serious enough to cause a crash.
Fairly important exercise then if the faults were missed by most garages and were “serious enough to cause a crash”, although I have to admit here that my eyebrows were rising at this point having seen the combination of “deflated spare tyre” and “serious enough to cause a crash” in the introduction but I carried on regardless expecting some interesting details at least.
Of the 62 firms tested the results were as follows :
Only eight garages fixed all of the problems on the vehicles, which were between three and six years old, while five did not rectify a single fault.
Not a great outcome if you are going to die soon driving one of those cars with their “serious” faults – what exactly was being tested?
Well I find the 4 items rather interesting :
Which? found 48% of garages failed spot brake fluid was at the minimum level; 68% did not inflate the nearly flat spare tyre; 57% missed a blown reversing light bulb, and the low pressure in the nearside rear tyre was missed by 21%.
Of those, I see the underinflated rear tyre to be the only one remotely possible of causing an accident but we don’t know if it was half flat or a couple of psi from its correct value. Now, 4 out of 5 garages rectified this but as we have no idea what the actual pressure was it could well be that it registered as correct on some of the garages equipment for example or they did a visual check which didnt show any underinflation at all.
The remaining three are pure shite in my opinion.
Yes the brake fluid was at the minimum level but that is so marked to be in the safe zone. Yes it could be topped up but it wouldn’t cause a crash now.
A spare tyre is not a legal requirement and I am still trying to work out how it can cause a crash whilst sitting in the boot.
A blown reversing light bulb? Well I suppose you may accidentally reverse over the rockery whilst backing on to your driveway on a dark night but hardly life threatening surely?
It isn’t just the BBC spouting this line :
Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said: “Almost all the garages in our investigation failed to fix basic faults.
“This could have endangered the lives of drivers and other road users and is simply not acceptable.”
I am still trying to work out how he arrives at the assertion in that last sentence but I am not getting very far.
In summary, its a half story based on very little fact with a few shock quotes and some dubious conclusions.
Sadly, I am not surprised with this being a BBC story – they do have previous form in the sloppy reporting department after all.
Sounds like a lot of horse shit to me.
Doesn’t even say what reason they gave for taking the cars to the garage. Loks like it was for a service or something.
I am trying to imagine a reason for taking the car to a garage where the mechanic would check both the screen wash and the pressure in the spare tyre.
People should really learn how to look after their own cars, anyway.
Nothing stated in that article would cause a crash, not even the low tyre pressure.
Seems as though they are just looking for an excuse to bring out some king of licence for machanics. Presumably one where you have to pay a fee to the council.