Do you agree that the new government should introduce a new industry-wide qualification introduced for all mechanics?

Interesting question but what is the connection with saving money do you think?? Regulation wd be good but then prices wd go up I reckon. Safety is better than saving a few pounds though.

No there are many different kinds of mechanics from bicycle mechanics to weapons mechanic (armourers) with a few hundred in between so does not seem a reasonable option to me. A civil aviation mech don't work on mopeds.
The second part of your question with regards to garages you will always get some that will take short cuts or miss things.Of course you will always have the rip off merchant lurking in the rear no matter what legislation is in place.

It would have to be classified as Noddy says - there are so many people that could be called 'mechanics' ranging from mechanical engineers (who have their own institute which requires a high level of qualifacation to join) to a 17-year-old apprentice working in the local garage who may only have been working for a couple of weeks. If we are looking at a money-saving aspect rather than a consumer issue here, I think that the best you can do is to look for either a main dealer for your car and pay accordingly or go to a well-recommended and trusted local garage that has experienced mechanics that will do the job properly and will almost certainly be cheaper. (This was discussed on the site a couple of weeks ago).If you don't understand what is being done then ask exactly what they are doing and why and try to learn. Don't be fobbed off if they patronise you as a woman 'who doesn't understand'. Persist in making sure that everything has been done and ask to see the parts they have replaced.

Industry-wide as in a car industry mechanic qualification? I certainly agree with you. This year we looked at taking our car to a local garage instead of the car dealership to save some money and based on the experience that we had afterwards, it proved to us why it is better to take it to the car dealership to start with. My partner had had reservations all along to take it to the local garage as he didn't trust it as much as the car dealership but I convinced him from the money saving point of view.

Firstly, they took hours to bring it back from the time that they had said the car would be delivered. And when I kept calling asking for the car the mechanic was always on his way. This was for almost 6 hours and the garage is 20/30min away by car at the most! That made us suspicious, but what can you do other than ask where your car is and why it is taking so long.

But then only a few weeks after taking it to the garage, there was a problem with the car and we took it to the dealership this time and they referred to some work that had been recently done (in the local garage) as the cause of the problem. Now we were left with another bill from the dealership plus no car for the days that it took to resolve.

No local garage again. I certainly would be much more trustworthy if there was the type of qualification that you refer to.

i cant see a downside, i read this article and i have to say it worrys me!

Thats terrible, something should be done about it for sure.

It's the age old dilemma of finding a garage that you can trust to make sure all work needed is done and that will not rip you off. Qualifications can be a good thing but they do not necessarily guarantee that the person will be professional or vigilant.

I agree with MarkX. Qualifications will not ensure that this practice is stamped out if someone believes they can make a profit by cutting corners. I also feel that it would be very hard to regulate and prove that a garage has been negligent. It is shocking that this type of thing does go on and the thought that it could directly relate to road death casualties due to faulty/shoddy work is appalling, you are right. However, I don't necessarily believe that you will get a better quality of service from the main dealerships. You may have more of a come back if things go wrong than you would at your local garage but the sad fact is that everyone is watching their profit margins and morals can quite easily go out of the window.