By CRM staff
Toronto, Ontario – March 7, 2019 – For nearly a decade Manitoba has set the vehicle inspection rate to a flat fee of $55, but that changed on March 1.
The provincial government dropped the $55 price tag for safety inspections and as of March 1, auto repair shops can now set their own price for inspections, which has been said to reach around $100-200.
As vehicles are becoming more complex, Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler said that the list for things to inspect is getting longer and shops are indicating that they can’t do it all for $55.
For the owner of Rudy’s Auto Service in Winnipeg, Rudy Epp says this bill is a long time coming.
Epp pointed out that the previous rate was getting expensive for shops and they weren’t making any money from it.
“For the flat rate price, I think a lot of guys in shops were finding things wrong that weren’t actually wrong … The $55 rate was causing a lot of dishonest repairs,” he said.
Epp told Collision Repair that his shop stopped performing safety inspections on vehicles years ago but have recently just started back up since the new bill came in.
