Creating an Ethical and Trustworthy Business to Consumer Experience within the Global Automotive Repair Industry

Today, the United States consumer vehicle market consists of about 276 million legally registered units, a prime candidate for service skulduggery (BTS, 2019). It raised some concerns when research conducted by the author revealed that about half of United States survey participants state they feel uneasy about approaching either a mechanic they know or one that was new to them. Additionally, when only 10% of participants from the same survey fully trust mechanics, this raises the question, why are so many drivers of consumer vehicles wary about bringing their cars in for service or repair? Furthermore, the author determined that trust within the automotive repair industry is a worldwide issue, and countries with scarce resources have additional struggles of their own. The success of repair centers in countries closer to the equator weighs heavily on the mechanic's knowledge and access to repair resources. The author found that this is partially due to the rapid acceleration of the car market without a proper backbone to the automotive repair industry. Ultimately, this resulted in repair shops with untrained mechanics who perform poor quality labor for an inflated rate (Izogo, 2015). The author focuses on this global industry through the example of the Maasai Automotive Education Center (MAEC), a proposed facility and school located in Talek, Kenya. MAEC is designed to bring automotive customer and repair resources to a rural community that needs it the most to save their land, culture, and people. The author uses various recently conducted global studies, news articles and videos, and personal research to determine the crucial steps and considerations the MAEC development team needs to ensure project sustainability and success. This study's conclusion lists 11 essential attributes recommended for the MAEC repair facility for ethical and high-quality operation.