Olivia demonstrates mechanic skills…

Wednesday 15th October, 2008 - £7,899.83 in debt…

You might have deduced - whether from my creative use of language, my love of boybands, or my name - that I am a woman. Strange but true. Unfortunately, men who run garages also tend to notice this. They hear a shrieking ‘car dunce’ alarm when I step onto the forecourt, and try to charge me for a new engine, gangway doors and some magic beans.

Perhaps because of this, my car’s MOT last year cost nearly £400. If this is going to happen every year I might have to give up my Daewoo Matiz which, despite having a 0.8 litre engine, is an incredible car and has served me well. But it’s looking like I might not have to do that quite yet…

My secret weapon is the council MOT centre. These exist all over the UK to put council vehicles through their MOTs, but they must be open to the public as well. As they only test vehicles and don’t do the repairs, in theory they have no particular interest in telling you there are millions of things wrong with your car.

Unless there are millions of things wrong with your car, of course.

My Matiz is about eight years old and is slowly falling apart, wheezing along like the last staggering corpse in a zombie film. I know I’ll have to put her out of her misery one day, but the things that fall off her tend to be tyres, brake pads and headlights - nothing important.

If I was any good with cars, or equipped with a Haynes manual and willing to learn, I could have checked this list for anything I could repair myself before I had the car tested. Unfortunately, I am neither.

Obviously she failed her MOT, but I’ve been given a list of what needs doing and had a quote of £230 + VAT for the repairs, which are booked for Friday. So far, so good…