Originally Posted by
jdm_b16a
When you get a Defect Notice (it used to be called a 'canary' because it was yellow) in NSW you have to present the car to an AVIS (Authorised Vehicle Inspection Station) and show them that you have attended to the points on the notice. The AVIS if satisfied everything is OK will sign off the Notice, and you take it to the RTA who process it. The Police are not involved after the initial notice. All this means is that it will cost you time and money to clear the Notice, plus a bit of aggravation (which is all part of the fun in giving you a Notice).
Firstly, the Police can do whatever they like when it comes to defecting your car, as evidenced by the fact that you were defected for "Front suspension". If, in their opinion, your car is unroadworthy it can be defected. It is, however, normally defected if you have fitted non-standard items to your car. The best example is the pod filter. The Police are not trained to do this - they operate on a hunch and they know what a pod filter looks like. Other than that they have very little idea. The officer pressing on your bonnet only says "I want to defect you but I can't prove anything is wrong" so he presses on the bonnet to make it look like he knows what he is doing. If your suspension is standard then you don't have a problem, regardless of whether it is new, one year old or twenty years old.
Common defects relate to:
Pod Filters (as I said, easy to spot)
CAIs
FMICs for turbo cars
"Big" exhaust tips
Lowered suspension
Aftermarket steering wheels
Aftermarket gearknobs
and now, aftermarket seats that don't have ADR tags
Why these?
Because they are easy to identify - that is the only reason. Anything else is too hard to pinpoint. If you get any other defect then the Police are just playing with you.
For example, you can't have an aftermarket gearknob unless it has the shift pattern on it. All gearknobs have to have the shift pattern on it (according to my workshop people, anyway)
I've had this conversation with the local Police station and as much as I believe it is all politically driven, the officer in charge assured me his officers would not discriminate against young blokes (usually on 'P's, in cars with some or all of the above modifications).
You know you can be defected for playing your stereo too loud, if a member of the public complains about your car and reports your license plate. You might consider the music not loud but the Police will usually side with the complainant.
Also, remember Police do not carry NLMs (Noise Level Meters), nor do they have a device to determine whether your car is too low or not. They don't have to. They only have to "suspect" you of being too loud at the exhaust, or too low on the suspension. That's enough.
So the tip is ... get rid of the pod filter, don't make your car ridiculously low, and ditch the 4" fart cannon from the rear.
And speaking of being defected if your car is 'dirty', the funniest thing I ever saw was a few years ago now, but an absolutely immaculate car with its number plates covered in mud to make the plates unreadable. It was obviously a ploy by the owner/driver to escape radar/speed cameras.
Peter