Hi,

Like many others my garage has been a member of the RMI (which was the MAA when we joined)and the MVRA. I've just clocked up my 33rd year as an IMI member. I'm ATA registered and as a Bosch car service garage we are OFT approved.
I firmly believe almost none of our customers care much one way or another whether we have memberships of trade bodies or any other form of accreditation. They care most about cost,job completion when promised and quality of work, more or less in that order.
We cancelled memberships of the RMI and the MVRA when they became prohibitively expensive for what we received in return, much as our customers will if we don't offer value for money.