They can't fail it though, just advise.

If there's no movement, they are seized....Not a good thing, Mister MOT

Blind Sam passes anything...

Being new to the world of 2CV others will be far more experienced than me,but...
I often hear it said that it's best to use an MOT station recommended by other members who are familiar with our cars and their pecullarities.
Every year I take my Landi in for MOT it always fails, invariably on 'grey area' faults which the garage are only too keen to quote for repairs. Because of the time and inconvenience in shopping around for prices I usually instruct the testing garage to do the work-doubtless like most punters. Yesterday for the first time I went to a County Council operated MOT centre following extensive recommendation in the motoring press. And guess what, it passed with only a couple of minutiae advisories.
For the record it took two operators 45 minutes to carry out the test. That's an hour and a half labour for a fee of £54, ie £36 an hour. Very fair. In contrast many garages offer 'come hither' cut price or even half price MOT's which short of a skimped job equates to £18 an hour. Totally unrealistic unless the whole 'sprat to catch a mackerel' exercise is to generate work for the garage from a dubious MOT failure.
Council operated MOT centres do not carry out any repairs but from my experience this is a positive advantage as they have no vested interest in failing a car on questionable defects.
I'll certainly be using the Council run MOT centres again.

The one time we used a council depot for an MOT, we had that definite "Stop wasting our time" feeling, and got a stack of _really_ picky and unwarranted fails, IIRC.

I think it's more a question of attitude - somewhere that actually values your business - and is trustworthy - not just trying to screw you for every short-term penny.

Not just MOTs, either - why would you ever give business to somebody who doesn't want it and who you can't trust...?

I've found that the places that try to screw you on repairs seem to become apparent if you ring and ask to confirm that they won't have any problem with you taking the car away to do whatever work is required yourself, and that they will still give you a full retest for free.

Last summer I think I phoned 40 MOT bays, and about a ten didn't have issues with that. Having said that I did go for the local QuickFit bay in the end with a friends trade arrangement as it was £35 rather than the more usual £45-55, and they weren't fussed about taking the thing away to tinker with it.

In France the MOT centres are all separate businesses that do not do repairs, and although they sometimes pass things that they really ought to fail (like my H-van), they very seldom fail something just for the fun of it.

And it's only once every two years.

And if they fail it, you can still legally drive it - it just has to be retested within (I think) 3 months.