will removing the silencer fail the MOT?

[danthemanwhocan]

Booked my car in for an, ahem, mufflerectomy at my gf's brothers exhaust place.

Told him about the posts on here regarding removal of the silencer to give a better sound to diesel engines. He is pretty sure that the silencer must be present to pass an MOT. He wasn't 100% sure but apparently having one constitutes an exhaust in, scuse the pun, sound condition. Not having one would fail, like if, say, the tail pipe was missing.

Can someone clarifty this for me. He makes the silencers from scratch and as they're freeflow ones, he also thinks i wont gain much from not having oone. But for £120 instead of £250, i'd rather go with plan a!

Cheers,
Dan.

 

[dj_hektik]

can't help, sorry, but your car looks absolutely stunning. The wheels are an excellent choice. 18's, right?

 

[danthemanwhocan]

hehe, thanks. They've since been changed but yeah they were nice wheels, 18's indeed.

C'mon, someone must be able to help me out here!!!

 

[satilaboy]

get it verified but i think you should be ok. I'm sure a friendly traffic cop (lol, unless he was just trying to trap!) told me that MOT wise it doesn't matter how loud the exhaust is.

and in terms of the cops pulling you for a noisy exhaust there is all sorts of tricky legislation covering this topic that half the traffic can't even get their head round. I'm sure the volume has to be measured whilst you are moving or something like that.

as i say though, i'd double check first rather than take my word for it and fail the MOT.

 

[Fluke]

Doesn't matter how loud or basic the exhaust is so long as it has no leaks or holes - so long as it's not 'blowing' - and is securely fixed.

Crazy law.

I had a straight through axhaust on an MG midget some years ago. No cat, no muffler. Just a 2 inch diameter pipe from manifold downpipe to the back of the car. Bloody loud, but legal.

 

[skidder]

Have been pulled over before in a Mk 2 Escort before cos exhaust was too loud. Might have just been used as an excuse to give the car the once over etc as we were enjoying some tail happy action in the wet. If it is too loud and you are driving about late at night this may count as causing noise pollution/disturbing the peace or some such nonsense. Can you get an asbo for a car
Have know people to go to the bother of opening up standard tailboxes and ripping out baffles and welding it up so the system was complete but effectevly had no rear silencer, sounded pretty good too. No problems when it came to MOT time but it "looked" like the complete system was there.

 

[Dennis]

Only noise restriction on car exhausts is when they are new, after that you can do what you like.

Mate (W Yorks Police) got pulled for noisey exhaust, had big arument at road side, got thing stampped by MOT and complaint to Police, he went through a time of constantly getting pulled for one thing or another and forced them to give him a producer to substanciate a harrasment complaint.

Half the police do not have a clue re car spec requirements.

Currently running a straight through stainless system with cat by-pass, on my car, quite noisey and never a problem with the police in S Yorks

 

[m0rk]

Only noise restriction on car exhausts is when they are new, after that you can do what you like

Exhaust system

The exhaust system will fail the MOT if:

* Part of the system missing or excessively deteriorated
* A mounting is missing or damaged so it does not support the system
* There is a major leak
* The system is excessively noisy.


Reason: b. a silencer in such condition, or of such a type, that the noise emitted from the vehicle is clearly unreasonably above the level expected from a similar vehicle with a silencer in average condition.

Source: http://www.motuk.co.uk/manual_710.htm

 

[danthemanwhocan]

So, the first point "part of the system is missing", i'm guessing that includes the silencer, so with not having one, the car will fail??

 

[satilaboy]

all depends who does the MOT. if you know what i'm saying. my old rover used to pass every time and it was a deathtrap