Improve your chances of finding a competent and honest mechanic and repair shop. Choose one with ASE certification! A mechanic who earns that certification from the national Institute for Automotive Service Excellence has passed at least one of its challenging exams in the past five years. If the shop itself has an ASE Blue Seal of Excellence, seventy-five percent of its technicians are ASE-certified and at least one of them works in each area of service the shop offers. So make sure the technician doing the specific repairs on your car has that certification, choose a shop that’s been around for at least five years, and check out other consumer’s opinions about their experiences at websites like yelp, repairpal.com and diamondcertified.info.