Long Eaton sits in Derbyshire, right against the Nottinghamshire border and close to Leicestershire, so a vehicle working out of the town can easily cross a county line or two in a day. Wherever it goes, the standard it is held to is the same: DVSA's. Roadside checks, the annual test and your OCRS score all reflect how well your inspections are done and how faithfully you keep to the intervals on your operator licence.
How we inspect
We work to DVSA's published standards, including its Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness and the HGV inspection manual. Each PMI covers brakes and the air system with a check of brake performance, steering and suspension, tyres and wheel fixings, lamps, reflectors and electrics, the chassis and body, coupling gear and load security, the cab, mirrors, seat belts and the driver's view, and emissions and leaks. Anything we find is recorded, repaired and checked again before the vehicle is signed off.
Defects that keep coming back
Certain items turn up at inspection after inspection: lamps and wiring, air leaks and pipework, worn brakes, tyres and loose wheel fixings, steering and suspension joints, fluid leaks, mirrors and wipers, and bodywork, curtains and load security fittings. If the same defect keeps appearing on a vehicle, or keeps showing up on drivers' walkaround sheets between PMIs, the interval or the maintenance plan may need changing, and we will tell you.
Ready for the test
The annual test should confirm a vehicle is roadworthy, not reveal what is wrong with it. Before the test date we go over the vehicle the way a tester would, fix the items that commonly fail and send it off prepared. If a Long Eaton vehicle has already failed, bring us the failure sheet. We repair the items, prepare it for the retest and look at why it slipped through.
Fitting inspections into the week
Inspections happen at our workshop at Calke Mill Farm in Melbourne, off junction 3 of the A50, Monday to Friday between 07:30 and 17:00. Where a service is due at around the same time, we do both together. Operators who would rather not track every date can hand the calendar to us under a fleet maintenance contract, with each vehicle's PMIs planned at the right intervals.
Booking
Call 01332 916028 with the vehicle, its registration and the date the inspection or test is due. We inspect HGVs, trailers, coaches, minibuses and light commercials to the same standard, so a mixed fleet can be handled by one workshop.
