Generic - Pre 2004 Cars - EML & MOT Failures Advice
Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:38 pm
Hi,
I have a petrol 2001 model 9-3 convertible.
Several years ago the EML light came on after I changed the plugs (possibly because the new ones had 'NGK' written on them instead of 'Saab'). I bought a cheapo analyser that just told me there was an ignition problem. As the car ran well and always passed the emissions tests on the MOT I thought nothing of it.
2 years ago a garage I was using for the MOT told me that they would pass it with the EML lit that year but that it would be a failure the following year (2020).
I did a few enquiries and it looked like I was facing a bill of several hundred pounds to trace and fix the fault, which is a lot given that the car has done about 160k miles. A search on the web stated that if I disconnected the terminals from the battery and shorted them out together for 30 minutes it would reset the EML and the light would go out. I tried this and it did but it only works for about an hour, which was just enough to get it through the MOT last year.
This year I used a different garage and they passed it with the EML lit. They told me that it didn't apply to petrol engined cars registered before July 2004.
So I called the DVSA to clarify the matter. The girl initially told me that the garage was wrong and the car should have failed, she then talked me through the online MOT test requirements and we went to section 8. She then gave a little gasp of surprise because written quite clearly it says that a lit EML is only a failure if the car was registered AFTER July 1 2003. So even the DVSA got it wrong until they read it, as did the garage that told me it was 2004.
I then called quite a number of garages in Surrey, the South East, Scunthorpe (my hometown) and random MOT test centres nationwide, including a large national chain, to see how many garages knew the real MOT requirements. About 75% l told me it was a fail so they obviously haven't read the requirements thoroughly either.
This means that a lot of owners of older cars will have either had to pay quite a significant amount of money to fix the problem or scrap a much loved car because of a lit EML when in fact the car should have passed.
This also raises the fact that any garage that fails a pre- July 1 petrol engined car because of the EML could be facing costs for wrongfully failing such cars.
I have a petrol 2001 model 9-3 convertible.
Several years ago the EML light came on after I changed the plugs (possibly because the new ones had 'NGK' written on them instead of 'Saab'). I bought a cheapo analyser that just told me there was an ignition problem. As the car ran well and always passed the emissions tests on the MOT I thought nothing of it.
2 years ago a garage I was using for the MOT told me that they would pass it with the EML lit that year but that it would be a failure the following year (2020).
I did a few enquiries and it looked like I was facing a bill of several hundred pounds to trace and fix the fault, which is a lot given that the car has done about 160k miles. A search on the web stated that if I disconnected the terminals from the battery and shorted them out together for 30 minutes it would reset the EML and the light would go out. I tried this and it did but it only works for about an hour, which was just enough to get it through the MOT last year.
This year I used a different garage and they passed it with the EML lit. They told me that it didn't apply to petrol engined cars registered before July 2004.
So I called the DVSA to clarify the matter. The girl initially told me that the garage was wrong and the car should have failed, she then talked me through the online MOT test requirements and we went to section 8. She then gave a little gasp of surprise because written quite clearly it says that a lit EML is only a failure if the car was registered AFTER July 1 2003. So even the DVSA got it wrong until they read it, as did the garage that told me it was 2004.
I then called quite a number of garages in Surrey, the South East, Scunthorpe (my hometown) and random MOT test centres nationwide, including a large national chain, to see how many garages knew the real MOT requirements. About 75% l told me it was a fail so they obviously haven't read the requirements thoroughly either.
This means that a lot of owners of older cars will have either had to pay quite a significant amount of money to fix the problem or scrap a much loved car because of a lit EML when in fact the car should have passed.
This also raises the fact that any garage that fails a pre- July 1 petrol engined car because of the EML could be facing costs for wrongfully failing such cars.