Garage standards code would benefit all

01 November 2006

Codes benefit business and consumers
Workshop industry only inching towards a code
Motorists pay £4 billion a year for bad service

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Business could improve for workshops if they signed up to an approved code of conduct, but the garage industry is still only inching towards getting a standard together.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) says a survey of businesses that have already signed to an OFT-approved code of conduct find that the benefits far outweigh the costs.

The OFT says members of such codes have far fewer complaints and an enhanced reputation. The survey, carried out by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, also found that consumers benefited greatly when they used businesses which had joined a code.

Only a handful of the UK's 24,000 workshops have signed up to a new BSI Kitemark scheme designed to guarantee consumers minimum standards, however, while progress towards an OFT-approved code of conduct continues at a snail's pace.

The Retail Motor Industry Federation, the biggest body representing workshops in the UK, abandoned efforts to get its code approved in 2004.

It then rowed with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders over a second joint code being prepared for OFT approval, which has also missed deadlines set by the National Consumer Council.

The NCC is now holding monthly meetings to ensure the code goes through the approval process and workshops sign up. Otherwise the NCC could launch a super complaint against the industry and force the Department for Trade and Industry to take action and legislate for legal minimum standards in a licensing scheme.

The workshop industry is worth £10 billion a year and has been slammed in a series of mystery shops and investigations for its poor and sometimes dangerous service. The Trading Standards Institute reckons motorists pay £4 billion over the odds because of the poor service they get from garages.