10th August 2005 • 1.00pm • Gillingham VOSA Station

Before I knew it my SVA day had arrived. The car was as good as I could get it, I'd read just about every single SVA post on the RHOCAR site and applied many of the suggestions to the car. I checked that every nut was nylock, all sharpe edges were covered and that there was no loose wiring.

I made myself a cover for the Mountney Steering Wheel and a cover for the spare wheel. I borrowed a rear view mirror, extended side mirrors and full size steering wheel just in case the Mountney one failed.

I had arranged a days insurance so that I could drive the car to SVA. As the car had never been driven before I booked it in to a local garage to have it's lights focused in the morning, the car was brilliant... no signs of over heating and nothing fell off :)

I arrived at the test centre at 12.45pm and parked the car in the SVA lane ready for inspection. My tester came out and asked me to remove the bonnet as they don't need it on during the test.

First of all he checked over the engine bay and tested the brake fluid warning light, then he had a general look over the whole car before asking me to drive it forward so that he could check the emissions. Next in line was the weighing machine then it was onto the ramps. The car was raised into the air with me in it so that I could wiggle the steering wheel and operate the handbrake while he was underneath.

With the car back on terra ferma he checked that all the lights worked. Then he got out the dredded sharp edges tool and had a poke about with that, the light focus was checked and then the front and back brakes were checked using rollers in the ground. Next came the speedo test followed by my examiner driving the car around the test centre to test for self centering and to check the visability of the mirrors using grid lines marked in the road.

When he had finished checking the mirrors he asked me to get back in the car while he checked the noise from the exhaust. It was after this part of the test that he looked down at me and said "well young man, you are one of the 5% we pass first time" WHAT A RESULT!!!