Michigan Certifies the Person Who Repairs Your Car, and the Two Collision Categories Are Never Retested

Short answer: Michigan certifies the individual mechanic, and a repair facility must employ at least one certified mechanic in every repair category it offers. There are twelve categories for cars and light trucks. Two of them are collision work: collision-related mechanical repair and unitized body structural repair. Every certificate lasts one year and is renewed by paying a fee. But the statute only requires you to re-demonstrate competence in three categories, on a five-year cycle, and those three were fixed in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Neither collision category is among them.

By Anthony Braswell for Quorum Industries LLC, The Autobody Directory · Updated 2026-08-19 · How this was written, and what the machine may not do

How this page was produced: Researched, drafted and checked with AI assistance under human direction, and signed off by the named author. How this site is written

So a Michigan structural technician can hold a current, valid, state-issued certificate in unitized body structural repair having last proved anything about structural repair decades ago. The certificate is not stale in any legal sense. It is renewed every single year. It has simply never asked a second question.

There is a second surprise underneath. A Michigan "master mechanic" is not certified in collision at all.

What Michigan actually requires

Michigan is unusual. Most states that touch repair at all license the business. Michigan does both, under the Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Act, Act 300 of 1974.

MCL 257.1305(1): "Effective December 31, 1977, all motor vehicle repair facilities must have at least 1 specialty or master mechanic in its employ certified in each category of repair which it provides."

MCL 257.1305(3): "Effective December 31, 1980, a person shall not engage in the business or activity of a specialty or master mechanic unless the person is certified pursuant to this act."

And MCL 257.1305(2) covers the gap: work on major service or repair by a noncertified mechanic "shall be inspected and approved by 1 who is certified in the pertinent specialty."

Read (1) again with a body shop in mind. A shop that offers structural repair must employ someone certified in structural repair. Not someone certified in something. Someone certified in that category.

The twelve categories, and where collision sits

MCL 257.1310b(1) lists the repair categories for automobiles and light trucks:

Heavy-duty trucks get their own list at MCL 257.1310b(2), and it also contains collision-related mechanical repair, at (g).

Now the part that is easy to miss. MCL 257.1310b(3): an applicant "is eligible for [master] certification if the individual passes the examinations in all repair categories listed in subsection (1)(a) to (h)."

The master set stops at (h). Collision-related mechanical repair is (i). Unitized body structural repair is (j). A Michigan master automobile mechanic has not been examined on either. The most senior credential the state issues for cars is, by its own definition, a mechanical credential that ends one letter before collision begins.

That matters at the counter. "Our guy is a Michigan master mechanic" is a real and demanding statement about engines, transmissions, brakes, electrical and HVAC. It says nothing whatever about whether he is certified to cut and replace your car's structure. Those are separate certificates, and a shop must hold the right one for the work.

Three categories get retested. The list was written in 1998.

The retest requirement is in the statute, not in a policy that could quietly change. MCL 257.1311(3) makes renewal of a specialty certificate conditional, and it names exactly three categories with staggered five-year clocks:

• MCL 257.1311(3)(a), engine tune-up and performance, in "the 1998 calendar year or in any fifth calendar year after 1998"
• MCL 257.1311(3)(b), electrical systems, in "the 1999 calendar year or in any fifth calendar year after 1999"
• MCL 257.1311(3)(c), brakes and braking systems, in "the 2000 calendar year or in any fifth calendar year after 2000"

In each, the mechanic must do one of three things: pass a test the administrator gives or approves, show completion of an acceptable training course from an approved school, manufacturer or distributor, or present a current ASE certification in that category.

That is a sensible mechanism. The question is the list. The Secretary of State states the consequence plainly on its own mechanics page: certificates in those three categories "are good for five years and must be renewed before their expiration date. All other repair categories do not require recertification."

All other includes both collision categories.

Look at the anchor years. Someone in the late 1990s decided that engine management, vehicle electrical systems and brakes were the three areas changing fast enough that a certificate from ten years ago should not be taken on trust. On the evidence of 1998, that was a good call.

It is also a snapshot. Since those clocks started, collision repair acquired high-strength and boron steels, structural adhesive bonding, rivet-bonded joints, aluminium-intensive bodies, and sensors mounted in the parts a structural technician removes and reinstalls. The list has not moved. The legislature has been back into this act more than once, most recently in 2016 Act 430 and 2025 Act 59 (which amended the category list at 1310b itself, effective 1 February 2026), and on neither pass were the collision categories added to the retest list.

We are not saying they should have been. That is a policy judgement and we do not make those. We are saying that a reader who sees "state certified" on a Michigan body shop wall should know which of those two things it is.

Every certificate is annual anyway, and that is a different thing

It would be wrong to read the above as "collision certificates never expire." They expire every year.

MCL 257.1320(1): "A certification as a specialty or master mechanic under this act takes effect on the date it is approved by the administrator and expires 1 year after that date." MCL 257.1311(2) and (3) set the term of both the master and the specialty certificate at one year.

So there are two clocks and they do different jobs:

• The annual clock is administrative. Reapply, supply your details, pay the fee. It keeps the register current and it is how the state knows who is working. Under MCL 257.1320(2) a mechanic can keep working past expiry while a timely renewal is processed, and pays one and a half times the normal fee if the application arrives late.
• The five-year clock is substantive. It asks you to prove something again.

Collision technicians are on the first clock and not the second. Annual renewal is not recurring proof of competence, and the distinction is the whole point of this page. A credential that renews often can still be a credential that has never asked a second question.

What it costs

Small numbers, and worth stating because they get repeated wrong.

• Each mechanic test is $18. That figure changed under 2025 Public Act 59, effective 1 July 2026, and the Secretary of State says exams paid for before that date are honoured.
• The certification application is $25, paid after you pass.
• A mechanic trainee permit is $20.

The trainee permit is its own small trap. Under MCL 257.1313 and the Secretary of State's own description, a trainee may work under the direct supervision of a mechanic certified in the same categories, but each trainee permit category is valid for two years and is nonrenewable. At the end of two years the trainee either becomes certified or stops doing that work. There is no third option and no extension.

Two collision-specific duties in the same act, easy to miss

While you are in Act 300, two provisions bear directly on body work and neither is about certification.

The invoice must name the mechanic. MCL 257.1307(m)(vii) requires the written statement of repairs to carry a certification that authorized repairs were completed properly, signed by the owner or a designated representative, and "The statement shall include the name of the mechanic who performed the diagnosis and the repair." Michigan requires your repair invoice to tell you who worked on the car.

The invoice must classify every part. MCL 257.1307(m)(vi) requires "a detailed identification of all parts that were replaced and a specification of which parts are new OEM, new, used, rebuilt, OEM surplus, or reconditioned." Six categories, not two. "Aftermarket" is not one of the six, and "OEM surplus" is a distinct classification from "new OEM."

Body shops keep a police book. MCL 257.1318(3) requires a facility engaging in vehicle body work to record every distressed vehicle acquired, from whom, whether a certificate of title or salvage certificate of title was obtained, and for late model vehicles every major component part with "the identification number assigned to the part." MCL 257.1318(4) requires those records be attached to a police book and made "immediately available for inspection by the administrator and other law enforcement officials" on request.

The emergency waiver, which we had not seen anywhere else

MCL 257.1305(4) lets a customer waive the right to have work done by a certified mechanic, in an emergency, using wording the statute itself supplies. The customer signs that they have "voluntarily requested" the repair "because of an emergency and thereby waives any claim or cause of action" against the repair person or the facility.

MCL 257.1305(5) immediately limits it: the waiver "shall not be effective unless given by the customer voluntarily and with the knowledge of the implications of the waiver", and no facility or mechanic "shall make use of the waiver of liability in an attempt to evade this act."

If you are ever handed that form, it is a real statutory instrument and not shop paperwork. It is also the only route by which Michigan work lawfully happens in a category the shop is not certified for.

What we are not saying

• We are not saying Michigan collision certificates are invalid or expired. They renew annually and are current. The point is narrower and it is about retesting.
• We are not claiming a retested category is safer than an untested one. We have no evidence either way and this page makes no claim about repair outcomes.
• We do not claim the legislature should add collision to the retest list. That is a policy judgement, and it is not ours to make.
• This page does not say certification means a shop is good. It means the state examined one person, once, in a named category. That is a real fact and a small one.

What to do with this

If you are a Michigan customer. Ask which category the certificate covers. "Certified" and "master" are both true statements that exclude structural repair. Your invoice is required by law to name the mechanic who did the work and to classify every replaced part into one of six kinds; if it does not, that is a statutory failure and the Secretary of State's Business Licensing Section is the place it goes.

If you are a Michigan shop. MCL 257.1305(1) is per category, not per shop. If you have added structural work, aluminium, or collision-related mechanical repair since your last hiring decision, the question is whether someone on the floor holds that specific certificate.

If you are comparing states. Michigan is one of a small group that certifies the person as well as the business. Hawaii licenses the repair dealer and the mechanic separately under HRS 437B, and Massachusetts licenses the appraiser who writes the estimate. See the fourteen states that license body shops for where facility licensing sits.

What we could not verify

• How many people currently hold certificates in categories (i) and (j). The Secretary of State publishes a Vehicle Dealer and Repair Facility Listing, which is facilities. We did not locate a public per-category count of certified mechanics, and we are not estimating one.
• What the collision-category exams actually contain. We read the statute and the Secretary of State's published process. We did not obtain a test blueprint or content outline, so this page makes no claim about the standard of either collision exam, only about how often it is required.
• Whether the three-category retest list has ever been reviewed and deliberately left alone, as opposed to simply not revisited. We read the amendment history and did not trace committee records.
• Whether the emergency waiver is used in practice, and whether it has been litigated. We read the provision. We did not search Michigan case law.
• The administrative rules under MCL 257.1309. The act authorises the administrator to promulgate rules and we cite the statute rather than the rule set, which we did not read in full this pass.

Sources

All statutory text read first-party from the Michigan Legislature's own site on 2026-08-19, which states the compilation is complete through PA 91 of 2026.

• MCL 257.1305, Motor vehicle repair facility; certified specialty or master mechanic required: "all motor vehicle repair facilities must have at least 1 specialty or master mechanic in its employ certified in each category of repair which it provides", and the emergency waiver at subsections (4) and (5). History: 1974, Act 300, Eff. Apr. 1, 1975; Am. 1976, Act 12.
• MCL 257.1310b, repair categories and master eligibility: the twelve automobile and light truck categories at (1)(a) to (l), including "(i) Collision-related mechanical repair" and "(j) Unitized body structural repair", and the master rule at (3), "passes the examinations in all repair categories listed in subsection (1)(a) to (h)." History: Add. 2016, Act 430, Eff. Apr. 4, 2017; Am. 2025, Act 59, Eff. Feb. 1, 2026.
• MCL 257.1311, application and renewal: one-year terms at (2) and (3), and the conditional-renewal categories at (3)(a) engine tune-up and performance from 1998, (3)(b) electrical systems from 1999, (3)(c) brakes and braking systems from 2000, each "or in any fifth calendar year after" that year, satisfied by test, approved training, or current ASE certification.
• MCL 257.1320, certificate term: "takes effect on the date it is approved by the administrator and expires 1 year after that date", with the late-renewal fee at 1-1/2 times the normal renewal fee. History: Am. 2016, Act 430.
• MCL 257.1307, prohibited conduct, at (m)(vi) the six part classifications "new OEM, new, used, rebuilt, OEM surplus, or reconditioned" and at (m)(vii) "The statement shall include the name of the mechanic who performed the diagnosis and the repair." History: Am. 2016, Act 430.
• MCL 257.1318, records, at (3) the body-work record requirements including "the identification number assigned to the part" and at (4) the police book and "immediately available for inspection" duty. History: Am. 1988, Act 254; Am. 2016, Act 430.
• MCL 257.1313, mechanic trainee permit.
• Michigan Department of State, Mechanics page, read 2026-08-19, for the recertification consequence in the agency's own words: certificates in the three named categories "are good for five years and must be renewed before their expiration date. All other repair categories do not require recertification." Also the $25 certification application fee, the $20 trainee permit fee, and the two-year nonrenewable trainee permit.
• Michigan Department of State, Mechanic testing page, read 2026-08-19: "In accordance with Public Act 59 of 2025, effective July 1, 2026, each mechanic test will cost $18."

• The fourteen states that license body shops
• What actually gets a California licence revoked
• How our data is verified

General consumer information: not legal, insurance, or financial advice. Requirements, coverage, and practices vary by state, policy, and manufacturer.

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