[RANT]

Ok, so I have been through the SVA process with a car that I have built. Although the main chassis is Robinhood, I desgined the front suspension, pickup points etc...

At the test most of the emphasis appeared to be on emissions, sharp edges, noise, sharp edges etc...

Although the examiner had a look under the car I am sure he had no idea what he was looking at, from an engineering point of view his knowledge was worryingly limited...



....There was no discussion about the design of the suspension, no discussion about suitability of materials/joints used.

Although the brakes are tested the actual "Driving safety" of the car is not assessed as such....so the car could be mechanically lethal.....I can appreciate that trying to test this would be very hard...

But the test just seems a farce......so much emphasis put on sharp edges/coverings etc.... Who cares about the pedestrians...im more interested in the drivers safety!!!

[/RANT]

[Edited on 22/8/08 by tegwin]

Had a good chat with the chap in Nottingham during my SVA. He commented on the quality of welds in most manufactures chassis ( not all though ) and explained that during his inspection he was checking the chassis for any faults. He said he had failed 3 home built chassis recently for lack of triangulation and also poor welds on suspension arms.

I think we only see the obvious sharp edges fails ect on this site because the quality of builds and ADVICE on builds is so high on this site.

If there was no SVA Then lots of cars would be on the road as death traps.

Paul

treat it like an mot - its only a quick snapshot of a car's alleged roadworthyness at the time of testing.
IT could be lethal the very next day.............
maybe the new IVA will ocver these in more detail.
Most cars are kits and the chassis' are built by "welders etc" so they seem to take these for granted as being fine......

They look for loose nuts, general assembly, welds, perceived chassis strength, brakes, speedo, emissions, seatbelts and hose types as well as sharp edges. Most of us are OK on this type of thing and so rarely hear of such failures.

My fuel hose was fastened with the word "fuel" against the chassis. He was going to fail me on unmarked hoses until I twisted it round. He failed me for not using mylocs on the master cylinders. My chassis was well designed and well made so no remarks were made.

True, SVA seems too concerned with radiused edges. If a car runs you over, a 2.4mm radiused edge would be the least of your worries.

nope very worth while, again the guy at nottingham, picked up on a key point i'd missed.

I'd not fitted hightensile bolts for the ball joints on the lower wishbones, made me change them (granted in the carpark and passed me) But if he'd missed it the accident could have been nasty

I guess it just depends on the tester.....im not even going to go into that here...the rant would be many pages long.....

if you think about it, how could they do the test?

you would have to supply bare chassis for them to put on some test rig, then come back another day with suspension/brakes/steering for them to put on antoher rig and test.

once built up, you would have to come back again and they would have to strip bodywork to see you have not undone anything from previous time and the put on test rig again....

it would be quite time consuming and very expensive and would kill the home built kit car.

we would be only left with bolt together westfileds, not that that would be a suvh a bad.

While in general it's a very good thing - they do spot real issues.

I think there are two issues with SVA and IVA will be exactly the same.

1. Consistency of tester opinion. There's far too much variation between what is acceptable at one station and another. There will always be some grey areas and disagreements but there have been some fairly fundamental interpretation differences reported here.

2. The sharp edges rules being enforced strictly over trivialities where they know any padding added will just 'fall off' 20mins after the test. They are just wasting their own and your time. The most ridiculous example recently was the tie wrap attached rubber pipes over some bonnet vents.


words fail me nice mr SVA man

[Edited on 22/8/08 by iank]

Must have missed that thread...I assume those hoses were deemed temporary and thus failed?

I know if I had turned up like that to my examiner he would have got all excited and said "FAIL"....grumpy git

They do look at the chassis design though as they were failing the RH lightweight for having the diff (amongst other things) just bolted in place straight onto rather thin sheet ali without any re-inforcing...

quote:

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Originally posted by tegwin
Must have missed that thread...I assume those hoses were deemed temporary and thus failed?

I know if I had turned up like that to my examiner he would have got all excited and said "FAIL"....grumpy git

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IMHO, the SVA has done more to improve the quality of kit cars than anything else.

You don't have to go very far back before SVA to see some truly 'orrible creations that should never have been allowed on the road. Even many of the commercial kits were appalling...

I found the SVA for my car pretty thorough, and he really was looking into all the nooks and crannies. He also asked some tough but fair questions when he was unsure about things. As my car was built from scratch I was quite happy for him to have a good look around.

It'll never be as thorough as the Australian system, where an engineer inspects it at various stages through the build, but it's not a bad compromise.

It could be worse, e.g. many European countries simply don't allow amateur-built cars. We could have easily gone down that route.

I support SVA. Excellent quality control imho and probs good value too.

There will always be areas for discussion as the book has to cater for many cars, however i do feel that the examiners have a huge responsibility and probs look at much more of the car than is simply covered in the guide. Just because they dont comment doesnt mean they dont see other areas of the car such as the chassis. These guys are hugely experienced in all aspects of cars and get involved in inspecting write off's that are put back on the road so must have come across all sorts of things in their time. As my tester stated - his name goes on the MAC for a sports car capable of big performance so if he aint happy he doesnt sign it, simple as that.

As above - we should thank our lucky stars that we are allowed to indulge in such a hobby in the UK.

You have to remember that all the hassle about sharp edges, is merely down to the fact that these sorts of things are designed out on the drawing board at a real Motor Car manufacturers eg Fords etc.

Our cars are are home built by people with little or no knowlege of the contrctuction rules or laws that govern the designers in the commercial world.

The SVA ensures that your car meets the minimum standards in these areas.
It also makes sure the vehicle complies with the law.

Some of the crazier points like passing SVA without the need for a Horn is daft, and will probably be rectified by the IVA.

I welcome these inspections, as I would not want to drive an unsafe car on the road, or be run over by one.

Its as simple as that.

People do get hung up about the 'sharp edges' bit!

Really, it's nothing to do with survivability at 30+ mph, and a lot to do with the amount of damage caused in a low-speed collision, e.g. 20mph or less, in an urban street. Even if you're driving at 30mph, if you attempt an emergency stop you may be doing a lot less by the time you hit the pedestrian.

It's the difference between one or two broken bones, and one or two broken bones PLUS being cut in several places by sharp edges. Some off those cuts could severely reduce the victim's chances of survival if they happened somewhere critical, e.g. on the head, or across an artery.