For Questions Regarding WOFs/CERTs/NUMBER PLATEs

[shizzl]

Is there a ground clearance min requirement for fuel cells/tanks?

 

I want to get the fuel cell off the back of the ute for a cleaner look and do that it now looks finished.

 

that was a temporary thing.

 

i have the fuel cell sitting under the frame, it only has 120mm ground clearance.

 

can I cut out the crossbar and move it forward towards the diff to get the tank up another 100mm?

I will need to make a trap door for the filler but that’s easy.

 

just want it done legit

[cletus]

yes. 200mm is the minimum. if its under that it must have a bash guard

[shizzl]

3 hours ago, cletus said:

yes. 200mm is the minimum. if its under that it must have a bash guard

Choice. Cheers for that.

 

might put in a bash plate anyway

[NickJ]

Can cert plates be officially remade? Or would it be replaced with a donut if removal (officially, for restoration) caused damage?

[cletus]

Yes, they can be remade

[GARDRB]

I know that circlip adjustable shocks are frowned upon and the WOF man will want to see a Cert, but what about Bilsteins with just a single circlip groove in them? They don't seem to do them without the alloy perch and circlip for my car. Am I gonna have any issues?

Just to push my luck even further, I also have a set of bolt in Altezza Bilstein shocks with Bilstein springs, the catch is they run a keeper spring. Would the keeper spring be an issue? This is a kit that was offered by Bilstein with a matched shock and linear spring and keepers.

I have two options to look at and I would rather not go down the Cert rabbit hold for either.

1) Use existing Bilstein Shock and spring with keeper on a new bilstein shock that hasn't got extra grooves cut in it.

2) Get new Bilstein Shocks that don't have grooves and run a normal lowering spring without the keeper.

What are my chances of getting a WOF that doesn't require a WOF man that doesn't know or doesn't follow the rules?

[cletus]

Rules, for not getting a cert 

= can't have a non original spring seat

= can't have any means of spring location that isn't spring being correct length

 

So those bilstein shocks technically require cert unless factory fitted to that specific vehicle regardless of if they have several circlip grooves or one. 

As for if you will have trouble with wofs? That will depend on the wof persons knowledge. There's probably tens of thousands of cars that should have a cert that dont, because the most common phone conversation I have is "it's been like that for xxx years and the wof guy says I need a cert now because the rules changed"

(they didn't, someone just read the book or got reviewed by nzta) 

 

 

 

 

[kws]

Wait, so every replacement shock that isn't OE requires a cert, adjustable or not?

[Bling]

Isn't that covered by direct replacements?

[GARDRB]

I think it's more that a lot of the Bilstein range (especially the one with eyes at the bottom) uses a slip on spring perch like this so they can essentially produce a smaller series of shock absorber bodies and slip a vehicle-specific perch onto them like how "body adjustable" coilovers are done so they don't need to weld up a million different clevises and perches. I'd interpret it as a replacement with a welded perch being fine, but once the manufacturing and attachment of the perch changes it becomes an issue

 

So in my situation it appears that you also run into the same situation with a Koni adjustable shock too

 

Hmm, and the Koni STR



I mean, you'd probably get away with it, but I don't want to have something else to stress about come WOF time each year just because the WOF guy wants to be a dick. This is meant to be my low-stress car (once I wind more camber into it than I'm allowed for cert to get my tyres to clear my guards)

 

[SiRge]

I've never heard of Bilstein or Koni shocks not passed with perch sitting on a single circlip groove in all my decades in hondas. Always easy to argue both brands are able to be sourced from repco etc as OEM replacements.

I've heard of people failing when there's multiple grooves as those are not OEM grooves and there's concerns over if that was suitable, and I've also heard of Wofs being a visual inspection and electrical tape strategically used

🤭

Hondas have different perch heights too, like the DA Integra one is flat perch because it's longer spring and EF civic is a 1.5 inch tall cup perch. So me swapping out the DA perch onto my factory EF shocks lowered my car by 1.5 inches. Was it legal? Dunno. Do I continue to be a degenerate? Yes

 

[GARDRB]

10 hours ago, SiRge said:

I've heard of people failing when there's multiple grooves as those are not OEM grooves and there's concerns over if that was suitable, and I've also heard of Wofs being a visual inspection and electrical tape strategically used

🤭

 

A little bog and some yellow paint and the grooves are gone, if they're set to their lowest then no one knows which other grooves are on there

[cletus]

On 28/03/2025 at 10:16, GARDRB said:

Because the WOF guy wants to be a dick.

 

The problem is not the wof guy being a dick, it's more like the wof guy doesn't want to take ownership of your problem for $80 or whatever a wof costs. 

Example

I've got a customer who gave a car a wof, and it had different size wheels to what the cert said, he blind eyed it because they knew each other, and he was keeping the car etc etc

The car then got sold for quite a lot of money

The new owner picked up the fact it wasn't certed for the wheels, and wanted it to match 

The seller of the car put it back on the wof guy, who got me to re cert it, which is when the problems started

It wouldn't pass cert due to the wheels rubbing on the body, plus someone had ground the calipers to fit the wheels, so it needed a new pair of rear calipers, and a new set of wheels with the right offset, and the guy who had purchased the car wanted the same wheels, which were quite expensive 

 

In the end that wof inspection cost that shop about 10k 

 

This is the worst case I've seen, but the same situation happens regularly, where the owner is stoked they got a wof or cert, the buyer of a car doesn't like the car or finds things to pick on, then start pointing fingers at previous inspectors for $$

 

This is made 10x worse when the vehicle ends up at the other end of the country, because there's no easy way of fixing it without paying someone else to do the work 

 

TL;DR

=have to stick to the rules to avoid problems later

 

[GARDRB]

Nah the WOF guy being a dick is a separate problem to the car being dodgy. It was more a comment on the anxiety of going for a WOF and knowing that different things pass and fail based on whether they got laid in the morning. Case in point the lack of sun visors on my uncle's MG Roadster that we take for WOFs. Sometimes it fails for not having sun visors (which they never had) and sometimes it's fine, but when it fails it's a whole argument that usually has to be escalated to the owner of the business who 10 times out of 10 tells the guy doing the WOF to pull his head in. 

I understand wanting to cover your arse, but the inconsistency really gets me. Plus my brother's Surf has just been through a WOF and a wheel alignment with what turned out to be 2mm of play in a bottom balljoint that was completely missed by the WOF and alignment guy and we diagnosed in the driveway at home within two minutes. So I'm a little salty at shit service.

[440bbm]

lol you arent ever going to fix that problem. some wof guys are just cunts for the sake  of it.  just like plumbers and civil engineers and everyone else can be. 

 

my last wof, the guy said i needed cert because i have 20" wheels.    Even though the rolling circumferece is within the standard tyre rolling size withing 5% per the rules, no clearance issues etc. he was just plain wrong. 

 

[igor]

Yep, when you find a good wof guy stick with him. Even if it costs a little more you know you can trust him.

 

[Bearded Baldy]

My wof guy is a right prick.

[Bling]

WOF guys are humans too, I think people forget that sometimes. I use the same crew every time and have a good relationship with them. Would not be too keen to take the certed car to a random place, i'm sure they wouldn't want to deal with the extra work either! 

On 03/04/2025 at 11:04, 440bbm said:

my last wof, the guy said i needed cert because i have 20" wheels.    Even though the rolling circumferece is within the standard tyre rolling size withing 5% per the rules, no clearance issues etc. he was just plain wrong. 

What were the factory sized wheels? Can still be picked up for inappropriately sized tyres too if stretch is your thing.

[440bbm]

15 x7 

yes aware of the stretch tyre size on rim width but thats not the case at all. 

 

[440bbm]

4 minutes ago, Bling said:

WOF guys are humans too, I think people forget that sometimes. 

of course. exactly why i said plumbers, consulting engineers  etc etc too.