IVA Test

IVA Test

Another early start to get up to Nottingham for half eight, however the car was loaded in the trailer the night before so we could get off straight away at 6am, also making sure that we had all the spare IVA trim and some tools just in case. We arrived in good time and the engineer got to the inspection straight away.

Sitting pretty in the morning sunshine.
We also, as all others have done, left the side screens at home as they are occasionally an IVA failure.

First off the bonnet came off and the car was gone over with a fine tooth comb. He also showed us all the places that they concentrate on, especially the places where the small plastic ball can get to.

1. It was at this point that we were told that we would be required to cover the end of the top wishbones, where the locking nut is on the ball joint. 
2. We were also required to cover the joint where the front brake lines meet through the body panel. The joint at the calliper was deemed to be sufficiently protected by the other parts to be required to be covered. 

He then mentioned that the front bonnet catches should have been better covered. This was a last minute fix as the car had been returned to us without the front catch covers. However instead of failing us he went to sort some paperwork for a short while so we could fix those issues, other than that there were no troubles with the car he could find. He also answered our question about the seat bolts and verified that it doesn't matter to them, meaning that we'll be changing them for shorter ones after we get back.

He then moved onto inspecting the underside on the lift, then checked headlight alignment (which Caterham did for us), then checked the emissions, then he moved onto the dyno to check the speedo and braking, then the sound check, then finally he took the car to the scales for the big weigh in (a whopping 590kg kerb). The biggest relief was definitely the emissions and noise test as many people have failed  on one of these two, especially as the car has only been run by Caterham with 1 mile on the clock, and we have only run the engine on the drive, but both passed, but with next to nothing to spare.  

Glad we went for the EU style tunnel as it proves a good place for a phone and other bits.

All in all we were in and out within 1 hour, and that is including the 15 minutes he went off to fill in paperwork. We were then given the certificate as the car was being loaded, now all there is for is to send the paperwork off and wait for the registration number. This is likely to take longer than expected as we have decided to include a note with the paperwork asking to wait for the registration change on the first of March. At least this will give us some time to do the changes on the car we have planned.