Just wondered if other 'honest' garges have tried it on? I had a suspension rattle which I thought was a snapped spring. Looking at all the springs I found a rear one to be snapped. I bought some springs at £50 and with the help of an older neighbour fitted them. Rattle was still there asked my usual mechanic to check he said he could not find anything dangerious. A month later the ratteling got worse so I took it to another garage they discovered two bits of lower coil sitting on the cup. The springs are safe because they are both the same height and sit in a cup but because they have snapped once I am worried they break again but this time wrecking a tyre so I need to replace them. The garage who diagnosed it quoted me £200 which I laughed about. My usual mechanic would probably do it for £120 but would just say wait till the MOT (in March!). This means getting other quotes and the fast fit centres all want between £140 and £160. I am sure I can get this price lower too. My question is how the hell did the original garage think they could charge me £150 labour just to replace two springs? Plus the £20 for the diagnoses, which means the total labour bill would have been £170. I fix computers and would have to do about 6-8 jobs to get that money. I am also having a few little power loss issues which my mechanic has been helping me with, he has done three live data checks on my car with his £3k ECU reader and discovered its going into limp mode. We both agreed the MAF was the most likely cause. Next problem I had to buy the MAF, its a Bosch part and VX wanted £250 for it. I spend time on google and found a supplier selling genuine Bosch ones for £86. I phone them up and he started asking me a load of questions before he would sell it me, he agreed it did sound like the MAF from the symptons and lamdba fault code I have. So I will probably pay my mechanic £20 plus £10 tip for fitting it and covering the cost of the scans if I took it VX they would have wanted £50 for each scan, £250 for the part and got knows what for the fitting labour probably £50. So why are garages still trying it on in this hard times?