Sheet 01 · The car
Put your reg in.
We’ll tell you when it’s due and when we can take it.
A garage that keeps records. Every job here is dated, itemised and initialled — starting with yours, before you’ve even rung.
Stock photograph, for atmosphere · not Bell & Sons’ own bay — that one’s drawn to scale, below
This week’s free slots
Ray or Dean picks it up in the office. If the phone rings out we’re under something — leave a message with your reg and we ring back the same day.
Loading this week’s slots…
Unit 4, Wilbury Way,
Halifax, West Yorkshire HX1 1AB
Second entrance past the tyre place — not the first, that one’s their trade counter. We’re at the far end behind the blue skip. Park anywhere on the apron.
Key-drop box left of the shutter · from 06:30
Bay 2 · two-post lift · class 4 & 7
Nothing gets touched until you’ve said yes to a number.
Your car goes up, the tester walks it, and if something needs doing you get a phone call and a photograph before a single spanner moves. That is the whole method. There is no version of a day here where you collect the car and find out what it cost at the counter.
Drawing: bay 2, to scale — 4.6 m between the posts, 3.1 m under the beam, sills at 1.35 m
MOT test · class 4 · cars and small vans
£54.85
This is the most any garage in Britain is allowed to charge for an MOT.
The fee is set by the DVSA, not by us. Nobody can legally charge more, and a garage charging you £25 is charging you for something else later — it is the same test, the same 45 minutes, the same computer. Ours is done by Dean, who has held a tester’s licence since 2007.
Everything below is what you pay, including VAT and including parts unless we say otherwise. No “from”, no quote form, no ringing round to find out.
- MOT test, class 4Cars, small vans up to 3,000 kg£54.85
- MOT test, class 7Vans 3,000–3,500 kg£58.60
- Retest within 10 working daysSame tester, same day if the part’s inFree
- Interim serviceOil, filter, 32-point check, fluids topped£89.00
- Full serviceInterim plus plugs, air and cabin filters, brake strip£169.00
- Diagnostic hourCode read, live data, and a written finding£45.00
- Brake and tyre checkTen minutes, while you waitFree
- Air-conditioning regasR134a. R1234yf is £125 — the gas costs more£75.00
- Labour, per hourCharged in quarter hours, not rounded up£62.00
Last printed 4 August 2026. If the sticker on the wall says something different to this page, you pay whichever is lower.
Everyone’s worry is the same, so here it is answered before you ask.
A fail is not a bill. It is a list. You are allowed to take that list anywhere — to us, to the garage your brother-in-law uses, or home to think about it. Four things are true whatever the sheet says.
The retest is free
Bring it back inside ten working days and there’s nothing to pay for the retest. Most go through the same afternoon.
No work starts without a yes
We ring, we tell you the part, the labour and the total. If you say no, you owe us the test fee and nothing else.
The repair can go elsewhere
A fail sheet is yours. Get it fixed anywhere you like and bring it back for the free retest — we won’t sulk about it.
Your old parts, kept
Every part we take off goes in a box with your name on it in biro. It sits by the door for a fortnight. Ask and we’ll walk you through what failed.
A photo, a price, and a wait for your answer.
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We find it, we photograph it
The phone goes under the car with the torch. You get the picture of the actual corroded pipe on your actual car, not a stock diagram of a brake line.
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You get a number, in writing
Part, labour, total, and how long we’ll need the car. Texted so you have it to look at, then we ring to talk it through if you want to.
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Nothing moves until you reply
If we can’t reach you the car sits on the ramp and we try again. We have never once decided on your behalf that you’d have wanted it done.
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If it changes, you hear before it changes
A seized bolt or a second failed part means a second phone call, not a bigger invoice at the end.
1.4 MB · taken 09:52
The second question is always “but how do I get to work?”
There are four answers and none of them has a price on it. Pick whichever one fits your morning and say so when you book — the courtesy cars in particular go early, because there are two of them.
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2 courtesy cars
Free, on any job past lunch
A Corsa and a Fiesta, insured and taxed. You put fuel in it, that’s all. Book it when you book the car in — there really are only two.
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5 miles
We’ll come and get it
Collection and drop-off before 09:00 — Halifax, Elland, Sowerby Bridge, Brighouse, the Huddersfield side. No charge.
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55 minutes
Or just wait for it
While-you-wait tests at 08:30, 10:00 and 14:00 every weekday. Proper chair, a kettle, the wi-fi password on the wall, and the ramp through the window.
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9 minutes’ walk
0.4 miles to the station
Down Wilbury Way, left at the lights. Drop at 08:00, on the 08:12 to King’s Cross, car done by the time you’re back.
Any make. And a short honest list of what we send elsewhere.
The short version: if it bolts to a car, we probably do it. The second list is where we stop, and we would rather tell you that now than halfway through.
We do this every week
- MOT class 4 and class 7 Cars, small vans and vans to 3,500 kg. Test station on site, no sending it out.
- Diesels, DPFs and EGRs Forced regens, pressure testing, and a straight answer about whether a clean will hold.
- Cambelts, chains and water pumps Belt, tensioner and pump together, because doing one is doing it twice.
- Clutches and dual-mass flywheels Gearbox out on the ramp. Two days, courtesy car included.
- Hybrids Aggie holds IMI Level 3 for high-voltage safe isolation. Toyota, Honda, Kia, the lot.
- Air-conditioning F-Gas registered. Regas, leak detection with dye, condensers and compressors.
- Brakes, suspension and welding Including MOT welding on sills and subframes, tested in-house afterwards.
- Diagnostics Snap-on and a laptop with the manufacturer software for most European makes.
We’ll tell you it’s a dealer job
- Security-coded modules Some VAG, BMW and Mercedes keys and control units can only be coded by a franchise. We ring them and tell you what they quoted.
- Gearbox internals We take it out; a specialist in Bradford rebuilds it. You get his price and ours separately, not one number with a mark-up hidden in it.
- EV traction batteries Pack-level work goes to the manufacturer. We’ll still MOT and service the car.
- Bodywork and paint We’re a mechanical shop. There’s a body shop two units down and they’re good.
- Air suspension calibration Range Rover modules needing dealer calibration. We’ll diagnose it and not charge you for the hour if we can’t finish it.
There is no commission in any of this for us. A garage that never says “that’s not one for us” is a garage that is about to learn on your car.
Three people. Sixty-eight years between them.
Ray Bell
Founded the place, 1988
Opened the unit with one ramp and a Ford main-dealer toolkit. Still does the Saturday morning tests and still answers the phone first.
- Time served
- 41 years
- Qualified
- IMI Master Tech
- Best at
- Old diesels
Dean Bell
MOT tester · class 4 & 7
Ray’s son. Tester’s licence since 2007, which is around 19,000 cars. He is the one who rings you with the photograph.
- Time served
- 19 years
- Qualified
- IMI Level 3, MOT
- Best at
- Diagnostics
Aggie Nowak
Technician · hybrid and EV
Came through an apprenticeship here in 2018 and now handles everything with a high-voltage badge on it, plus most of the air-con.
- Time served
- 8 years
- Qualified
- IMI L3 EV, F-Gas
- Best at
- Hybrids
And this is what your file looks like after a few years here
| Date | Mileage | Work | Result | Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11.03.2026 | 98,410 | MOT class 4 · front discs and pads | Pass | £236.85 |
| 02.09.2025 | 92,880 | Full service · cabin filter | Advisory: rear tyres 3mm | £169.00 |
| 13.03.2025 | 88,102 | MOT class 4 · retest after NSF spring | Pass | £0.00 |
| 11.03.2025 | 88,090 | MOT class 4 · nearside front spring snapped | Fail | £197.00 |
| 28.08.2024 | 81,377 | Cambelt, tensioner and water pump | Done | £480.00 |
Ask for a printout any time — when you sell the car it is worth more with this attached to it than without.
It is behind the tyre place, and everyone drives past it once.
Coming down Wilbury Way from the A505, take the second entrance after the tyre depot — the first one is their trade counter and you’ll end up doing a three-point turn in front of an audience. Ours is the roller shutter at the far end with the blue skip outside. Park anywhere on the apron; nobody will move you on.
Key-drop box
Steel box left of the shutter. Keys in the envelope, reg and mobile on the front, post it. Text the reg to 01632 960180 so we know it’s there.
Sat-nav honestly
The postcode drops you at the estate entrance, not at us. Keep going 200 metres past the tyre place and look right.
1 The tyre depot’s own entrance 2 Ours — Unit 4, at the far end
- Monday08:00 – 18:00
- Tuesday08:00 – 18:00
- Wednesday08:00 – 18:00
- Thursday08:00 – 18:00
- Friday08:00 – 18:00
- Saturday08:00 – 13:00
- SundayClosed
Every one of these names the car, the job and the number.
A five-star review that says “great service, highly recommend” tells you nothing at all. These are the ones we ask for, and they are printed here with the job number they came off.
Job 4408 · Golf 1.6 TDI£480
“Quoted £480 on the Tuesday. Paid £480 on the Thursday. That is the entire review.”
Job 4331 · Focus 1.0 EcoBoost£120
“Failed on a rear pipe. Dean sent a photo of it at 10 in the morning, said £120, and it was £120. Retest cost nothing.”
Job 4288 · Discovery 4No charge
“They spent the best part of two hours on it, then told me it needed dealer calibration and wouldn’t take a penny. I’ve moved both our cars to them since.”
Job 4176 · Zafira 1.8£610
“Dealer wanted £940. Bell’s did it for £610 and handed me the old clutch in a box with my name on it in biro. Courtesy car for the two days.”
One text, four weeks before it’s due.
Driving without a valid MOT is a £1,000 fine and it invalidates your insurance, and the reason people do it is almost never that they didn’t care. It is that nobody told them.
So we tell you. One message, four weeks out, with the date and two slots already held. Reply STOP and it never comes again — we don’t sell the number, we don’t send offers, and there is no newsletter.
You don’t have to know what’s wrong with it.
“Grinding noise when I brake, worse turning left” is a better description than most of what we get from main dealers. Write it how you’d say it on the phone. If you know the reg, put it in and we’ll have the record open before we ring you back.
It arrives in the office as an ordinary email. Ray reads it on his phone between jobs and replies to it the same way — there is no portal, no ticket number and nothing for you to log into. If it’s urgent, ring instead: 01632 960180.
Weekdays, we answer inside the working day · Saturdays, before we shut at 1