ElementNotVisibleException although element can be selected by the user

The following test fails with org.openqa.selenium.ElementNotVisibleException because one of the parent css elements contains a "hidden: none;". However, the element for the user is visable and can be selected. Hence, I would like to test it. Is there any way to work around that problem? It seems I cannot edit the css.

code of test

Code:

FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile(new File("/path/to/firefoxprofile"));
profile.setEnableNativeEvents(true);
driver = new FirefoxDriver(profile);
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(16, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
driver.get("URL");  <== I couldn't enter the real URL since new members are not allowed to enter any Link within the first 7 days (the link is h t t p : / / w w w . a u t o s c o u t 2 4 . d e)
driver.findElement(By.linkText("Werkstattsuche")).click();
WebElement plzField = driver.findElement(By.id("cms-plz"));
plzField.sendKeys("81243");
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("span.buttonBob span input[value='Werkstätten finden']")).click();
driver.findElement(By.linkText("Inspektion (mit Preis)")).click();
Select selectMarke = new Select(driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("select.inputL[name='MakeId']")));
selectMarke.selectByVisibleText("BMW");

Hi,
If this particular item's 'hidden' attribute is changed by some functions, you can 'sleep' for few millisecs after opening the page.

you can use this logic

while(element.isDisplayed()){
Thread.sleep(1000)
}

This will wait till emenet is visible


Regards
Ashish
For selenium tutorials:
www.qtpselenium.com/selenium-tutorials