I'd agree with you in principle that the thought of the MOT test being dropped fills me with dread as well, but who among us hasn't been to look at a car that has a fresh MOT on it and only half it's chassis rails, missing bushes, stuck piston in at least one caliper, etc etc - all MOT fail points but somehow made it through...
TBH, the MOT doesn't do enough, but also leaves a lot of naive motorists thinking they're looking after their car with an MOT.
How many times have you had a neighbour ask you for help and then bemoan the MOT station?
"It was only MOT'd last week, I don't know how it could be out of oil if they did their jobs properly..."
"I had it MOT'd! How can it need a new clutch!?"
"My car won't start. The MOT was only last month! How could they have missed this!?"
Too many people think an MOT and maintenance are the same thing. If it passes the MOT, they assume their car is perfect and needs no attention for another 12 months. Balance that against the amount of car's that are deathtraps and still MOT'd because the right nod and wink were exchanged with a few additional pictures of ol' Liz... I'm not sure the net benefit of the MOT regs we currently have are actually on the positive side.
To answer your potential bias question: Both types of MOT stations, as well as garages.
To go into a personal rant (again, I know...) this isn't an argument, it's an opinion/viewpoint/experience and you're just as entitled to yours as I am to mine, etc:
National chains/Main Stealers aren't worth going near. ex-BIL worked as a tech at a main stealer and then a couple of national chains (until he and my sister parted company and I had no reason to care where he went) helped him and his gaffer put drum springs on - both had shredded their fingertips to the point of bleeding over an hour of trying to put the return spring on a transit rear drum when I arrived to pick him up. Gaffer said he wasn't leaving until the drum was back together. So I sent the gaffer to fetch me a screwdriver, popped the spring on in 3 seconds, handed him the screwdriver, was offered a job there and then - laughed and told him I don't work for idiots. Moving his tools out of the garage when he later left, I found a cache of pollen filters and spark plugs that had never been fitted because "they're trouble" - called him on it and was shown behind his colleagues' boxes. All the same.
I've seen independents where similar things happen, etc. Yep. No argument there - it's rife all over. I have friends and family members that have more mechanical nous in a sneeze than main stealers, and run their independents extremely well.
Independents are the ones that I've seen hacking exhausts up to create a fresh, perfect exhaust for a nurse who couldn't afford a new exhaust for her MOT. I've seen independents that tell people struggling to make ends meet "Look, we can replace it and it'll cost xyz for the part, or we can try and fix it for 30 minutes of labour. If it doesn't last, we'll fit the new part for cost only"
Bias all you like (I don't know which way you swing there, but this is
my rant
) but chain workshops NEVER consider the customer first. They can't - they're given book times to do a job. Book times that were calculated with an engine on a bench, not on a car. Too late behind the book times? Bye. Chain mechanics simply can't DO the job and KEEP their job. It's not the fault of the mechanic in most instances, just the situation the bean counters have put management in.
Any time I go to a garage because I don't fancy a job (front wheelbearing, anybody?) I go in and talk to them whilst they work on somebody else's car and watch them like a hawk until I know I trust them enough to watch them work on my car.
No chance of that at a national/global brand workshop. You get the "technician" with his papers etc who forgot to torque a customer's brake caliper - a week after he failed to torque the hubnut on another customer's car at a main dealership in Derby - and STILL kept his job! The oxygen thieves that serviced a friend's Mum's 1 year old Volvo in Blackburn and "forgot" to put oil back in.
...but you can't tell. You don't have any chance to meet and size up the person that will be working on your car at a chain garage.
