Yes I'm having problems getting my MY99 through an SVA test because my heater control ***** are too big !





The ***** are about 15mm deep when they cannot be more than 9.5mm. What ***** do you owners of MY99/00 STi's have fitted if you have air-con fitted? Are they slim line ***** or are they recessed into the dash?

Also a problem is with the exhaust which is mm's too far out to ignore an un-radius'd tailpipe . So what I need is a large diameter tail pipe trim, you know the shiny crome efforts. Problem is it needs to be 10cm diameter

Does anyone know a company which makes or sells tail pipe trims that size?

Cheers,
BIJ

 

This is a simple SVA isnt it; as youre an ex-pat returning home and its a personal import? I cant help Im afraid, although I though that failures for stupid petty things like this were a thing of the past.

Simon

 

pull the ***** off

 

If its a stereo you can remove it. ***** are harder.....

 

Maybe someone from here in your area can temporarly swap them for you so that you do the test and swap them back after

BR

 

How the hell does that affect the running of the car or its safety? What a bunch of muppets.

 

Small child in rear incorrectly restrained, head on collision, small child flies through seats and hits head on oversized ****. Chance of surviving 9.5mm **** is 95%, and only 5% for 15mm ****.

HTH

 

er they are not the ***** of an MY99/00 anyway that looks nothing like my dash, are you sure you have the right car mate?

 

I just use some lube and ease it in gently

 

Give a Moron a bit of power, and they become the biggest pain in the @rse.

 

I'm not even going to put my answer, I thought you were on about something else

 

GC8, yes it is the standard SVA. If it was the ESVA they would also be failing me on the intercooler, whole exhaust system, suspension etc....

Wurzel, I know exactly what car it is. I've owned it for 3 years and it's sat in my garage right now.

The reason given for the ***** being too big are safety related, I'm happy to take MattW's figures. The VOSA tester said that to avoid this problem with UK cars, Subaru fitted a passenger airbag, which of course mine doesn't have. So does anyone have a JDM import around that age (MY98/99/00) with air-con with different heater controls? If so, can you post a picture please? Ideally I'd like to source some for the SVA (even just borrow them for a day or two) rather than fart around trying to recess the whole heater control panel.

Also who are the chavviest suppliers of chromed exhaust trim tat which might have exhaust trim that size? Any suggestions?

 

There is a Co. called Trilogy who do huge exhaust trims, dont know if they go as big as 100mm tho, they should be available through an A1 motorstore if there are any near you.

hth.

 

Thanks for your post. The found Trillogy, but they are too small (needs to fit over a 100mm/4" tailpipe). The A1 Motorstore website has backboxes with pretty large tailpipe, but frankly they don't appear to have radius'd ends and so wouldn't pass a VOSA inspection anyway.

After some searching I've found one at Demon Tweeks but I need to check with VOSA how far an exhaust is allowed to stick out as it looks like it's about 25 cm long. I might just have to buy it and cut it down before fitting it. It's pretty annoying that I'm going to have to spend time and money to do this when it's going straight in the skip afterwards.

Still drawing a blank on the ***** problem, really need to find some slimline ones

 

after child hits head and survives, take out driver and give him/her a good smacking for not ensuring the child in correctly restrained in the 1st place

 

they look like the ***** in my current car

sva wnkers

 

I'm guessing the importers have a set of SVA friendly ***** which they use for the SVA only, then back on with the originals.

Thinking of a trip to a breakers yard tomorrow to see if I can find anything which will do.

 

a friend imported a ppl carrier thing and thay failed it on the wing mirrors cos thay said the edges where 2 sharp so he put a line of black tape over the edges and thay passed it ! lol

 

I would have suggested waiting till it was 10 years old like I did with my Toyota Crown but thats a long wait. Are the people who do these test a bunch of beaurocratic pencil pushers.

"We failed your car sir because the heater controls could have somebodys eye out!"

Will the controls of a uk spec motor not fit?

 

on my v6 sti, i havent got a pasanger air bag, the the heater **** look the same as yours.

mine was in the u.k from now, not sure if that would make any difference?

 

I'm sure the import companies have sets of ***** they swap for the standard ones just to get it though the SVA, then back on with the originals to sell.

I went to a scrap yard yesterday on a search for anything else which will do. Couldn't find anything what would be right "out of the box", so used some Rover heater ***** and a mate help to modify them. Fitted the new ones on this morning. Although better, still looks > 9.5mm projection from the dash (will post new pics later). Have now got the dash in pieces as I think I need to recess the panel with the heater controls on it

Have stripped out my sat nav now (wouldn't work in the UK anyway) so getting there slowly. More farting around needed next week getting the exhaust pipe trim to fit. Marvelous.

 

So my car finally passed it's SVA test today

It was close though. First the examiner spotted a random wire which looked like it could have been fouled by the clutch pedal, but I had some tie wraps handy and after a little contortionism that was passed OK.

Fog light, wiring, exhaust tail pipe radius, all passed.

Last was the heater control dials. Fail.

Now bear in mind that I'd sourced some slimmer ***** from a scrapyard, and then they were cut down as much as possible. After fitting they still seemed a marginal so I recessed the heater control unit another 3mm from the surface of the dash just to be safe. But he gets out his magic gizmo, a sphere of about 160mm radius with a depth gauge plunger and they were still protruding too far by about 3mm.

Then for the first time he showed a little humanity, he said he was going off to start on some paperwork so that if I had any tools then I could try to recess the heater control unit further before he came back.

So off came the surround and out came the screws. I ended up pushing the unit as far back as I could (virtually no clearance on the right hand side) and packed the sides with padding to stop the unit moving around too much. So the unit was just held in by packing and not the screws. Sounds like a quality solution hey?

The right hand **** passed by a hair's breadth, but it passed.

Now all I need to spend a few hours undoing some of the dodgy work needed to get it through an SVA test and get it registered, get new plates and then I can drive it

 

Congrats.

Be careful when you put the dials back to standard though you might have somebodys leg off with them protruding sooooooooo far.

At least you've got it through.

 

This is what it looks like right now.



held in by little more than cotton wool (engineering grade, natch )

I'll have to secure the unit back in with screws and I have to go back to the original ***** because the temporary ones don't line up with the functions. It'll be a death trap then, obviously, but I'll take the chance.