Al_Sweetman

I suppose this is coming down to a difference of opinion with regard to what "safety related implications" covers. Granted the individual points picked up on such as clutch plate material are much more involved and awkard, but does that mean they shouldn't be done? Visual hose checks etc. aren't that involved - is it squidgy or hard, are there signs of leakage around the couplings? And fluid (well, maybe not oil) - does it look clean if it's meant to, or is it black and scuzzy? Maybe they offer the opportunity of "we've picked up on this, if you can demonstrate it's been changed recently ....." But yes, with different regs and interval advice for different cars, that would be hard.

I suppose it comes down to this: I appreciate the difficulties that would be associated with this but we're talking about a hypothetical "what, if anything, would you like to see changed". I'm sure that as you rightly point out it's impractical to implement these sorts of changes but that still doesn't alter the fact I feel the total lack of mechanical coverage to be a hole.

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Maybe they should introduce a road worthiness test every x years? Like the equivalent of the 14.5k mile service...
</facetiousness>