Fixing my old Mercedes then realising I’ve been scammed

My advice, bide your time and find another S Class from same year and colour . Use this car as a donor . Trust me , I have been there with a couple of cars before . Don’t panic .

Perhaps the workshop should be called NEVerland?

As an ex - tester I had hoped that these sorts of shady MOT stations would have been a thing of the past. Pass the details to VOSA and they will do an under cover visit. Qudos to you for taking the hit. Lastly - I love a Merc. But they are prone to rust and this is very common. I don't know if the super rubber underseal was to blame. But I regularly found corrosion lurking under what appeared to be unblemished factory underseal. Hope your next project is a better one.

Thanks for being so discriptive with your videos. I'm totally blind and used to do a lot of car repairs and engine removal work. Your eexcitement and passion makes me miss the hobby a lot! Thank you for all you do.

Report the MOT stations about this car - and tell them you have reported them. The DVSA will investigate any malpractice, as this is a public safety issue. It sounds like the seller knows the MOT tester. A lot of MOT stations have to hire in their MOT testers as temporary staff. The MOT tester, who issued this MOT certificate, won't have a vested interest in the future of the MOT station, as he's probably only a temp. The DVSA has a vested interest in ensuring the MOT certification process can be relied upon by the public, as an accurate measure of the state of a vehicle. The DVSA can suspend an MOT station's licence if they have allowed the MOT process to become corrupted.

I had a couple of these W126's. When the chrome of the rear bumper is rusted like that, usually the whole condition of the car is very bad. Also look at in the trunk, and up towards underneath the parcel shelf. If that is badly rusted, another indication of bad condition. Don't get mad. We all learned the hard way..it takes a couple of these cars to get experienced.

As a MOT tester and Unfortunately I've seen it all, and it's not all that unusual, but the only way to find out how bad it is, is to put it in for a MOT, the DVSA won't be at all interested, it's been a year, and the MOT bare minimum, I'd love to go over it with you and do a pre MOT inspection, and we could really see what we're looking At.

I have had a very similar experience with a Landrover Defender, it passed an MOT two months before I bought it, then I found that the chassis was repaired with newspaper, headlights didn’t work, and lots of other bits that should have never have passed an MOT. I reported the garage to the DVLA/DVSA and turned out he had been doing dodgy MOT’s for 200 quid on the side. Absolutely report them and let them get investigated, you are probably not the only one.

Your polite suppressed anger is quite something. Good man, you have helped people by being so open and informative. Someone else may dodge a bullet because of this.

A tip for soldering - use 60/40 leaded solder only. The lead free stuff is a nightmare to work with.

It is simple, put in your log book number on the MOT site and you will have the name of the garage that carried out the previous MOT and report them. You have a duty to get trading standards and VOSA involved, it won't cost you anything and it puts the MOT testers on their radar so they cannot MOT another car ever.

Call the workshop "The Money Pit" bit of a double meaning and ties in with the name of the channel 😂

More than an hour long video, You are treating us very well :)

Just the no advisory part red flags me , cant think that a 33 year old car would be absolutely fault free

As an ex M.O.T. tester and mechanic that took pride in my work, (Not a fitter as they all seem to be now) I would strongly advise to follow up via the powers that be. Not only for your benefit, but to protect everyone else on the road, and probably more importantly the innocent kirbside victims that aren't protected inside a metal box. As someone else eluded to about temporary staff in testing stations, we know that this insn't the case here. This is a career tester, which I would suggest is very well known to the "customer". Just my 2cents worth. Karl

I had a a very similar thing happen to me. I bought a 1981 Mercedes SLC with a brand new MOT, got underneath to do a small job and i was horrified with the rust. The person i bought the car from, owned a coach business transporting children too and from school. And guess what, the same MOT station who had done my car also done his coaches. I reported him to VOSA. He also paid for all the repairs which needed to be done on my car.

Dude... dude dude... your workshop is a place of repair, and honestly you did nothing wrong in my eye and your fans on this channel, don't beat yourself up and pride yourself on taking it off the road.

Soldering tip - put an elastic band around the handles of your pliers and they will hold onto whatever you’re trying to solder so you can have a spare hand to hold another tool,like a solder sucker

Compared to all the car repair / restoration videos on YouTube, yours are by far the best. Please keep making them. Best regards from Blackwood, South Wales.

You bought that car "sight unseen". You then proceeded to work on it and spend cash on it before having a bloody good look at it. You didn't even get your MOT bloke to have a look at it before your endeavours. It's an old banger with some valuable parts. Strip it , sell what you can and learn from the mistake.