"The only things that need to be fixed are the ones that fail MOT" No Victor, I wouldn't agree with that. The MOT is an examination of the car for, mostly, safety and pollution purposes. There's a lot of other stuff which will not be picked up by it - for instance - a small water weep from a coolant hose/pipe or maybe a brake caliper which is "dry" and gummed up with brake dust, I could go on. Then also it's a good idea to always have new oil in the engine. Why? Well, old oil will have lost some of it's viscosity through degradation so it will be more likely for a little to be getting past piston rings etc. This might affect emissions.
I service all 5 of our "family fleet" (the Kia is still under it's 7 year warranty so goes to the dealer to maintain warranty) in the month before their MOTs are due - this is a bit of a nuisance as 3 of them fall due in the new year, just when the weather is coldest!
As to your last question about opinions. Technically the garage is acting for the department of transport when carrying out an MOT so the standards should be identical from one test station to another. My perception is that things have improved a lot in recent years but there's no doubt that a garage that does MOTs generates work which others miss out on. When I first was promoted to workshop foreman/manager we had a very keen apprentice who was very keen to learn. I let him work alongside one of my MOT testers who would get him to examine the vehicles and tell him what he thought was failable. Of course the qualified man was actually doing the test and signing the certificate - all above board. Unfortunately one of the DOT's anonymous engineers booked a test with us and got the wrong end of the stick, thinking it was the apprentice who was doing the actual test. He immediately stopped us testing and we had to jump through a whole load of hoops before we got our authorization back. Our workshop revenue fell measurably during that period of time (and head office were very unhappy with me, but they didn't sack me and all came good later) The Irish have government centres where your car gets tested. In theory I think this is a good idea as there is no vested interest but I know it's not problem free - you have to book well in advance and if you fail I believe it can take some time before a retest? One of the small garages I worked in (it was the DAF agent) didn't do it's own MOTs and we used to take our MOT vehicles down to the CO-OP in Musselburgh who mostly did MOT's on their own vehicles - including the hearses, very interesting coachwork to look at on them. Any member of the public could take their car there but the workshop only repaired their own fleet so if you failed you had to remove and repair, or arrange for repair of, the vehicle yourself. This was a good thing as they had no vested interest in failing you. Their MOT's were strict but very fair and I continued to take my own cars there for many years after I moved on from the DAF garage until I went there one day to find them all closed up and gone.
If you're not talking about MOTs then every mechanic is free to make up his own mind about what really needs to be done on the vehicle. The way I worked it was that the mechanic would collect the worksheet and his parts from the storeman - I only ever worked in one really big garage where there were "receptionists" (another layer of personnel which add to costs and confusion between the customer and the man doing the job in my view). If the mechanic spotted something needing done which was not on the worksheet he would call my attention to it, Unless it was something very simple - which often we wouldn't charge for but make sure the customer knew they'd got something for free, good PR! - I would double check what he was recommending and ring the customer to get permission. Because I had actually seen what the mechanic was recommending it gave me the chance to differ with his recommendation - which seldom happened - and let me describe accurately to the customer what the problem was and why it needed attention. I think this approach worked very well and we had lots of returning customers.
So Victor, I think it's actually a good idea to have the car serviced just before it's MOT test. Your problem is that you need to find a nice small independent garage who you can trust not to rip you off. That's the difficult part of course. Where do you live? Maybe someone on the forum lives near you and could recommend a reliable garage for you to try. If you don't know much about the guts of your car it can be difficult to look for a suitable garage yourself because you don't know if the guy you're talking to is talking sense or not. If you can get a look in the workshop doors if what you see looks neat and tidy and the lighting is good that's probably a good starting point. I'd be a bit suspicious if all the mechanics looked spotlessly clean though!
Ps. Of course doing the service and MOT at the same time, if you're not doing your own service work, can also be very convenient as you're only without the car for the one day. It also, perhaps, removes the temptation to just "forget" that the car could be doing with a service?
