/start rant
I am pretty sure I know shop XXXXXX that you are referring to. I took my car there once because a lot of people including yourself (Richard) said it was a good shop. All I was getting was a fricking service not even anything spectacular and he tried to charge me twice as much as he quoted... when I commented on the price being a lot more he was like oh well I can't do it for that cheap it cost me more than that in labour... BS like I give a toss you completed only the stuff I originally asked for and if you can't get your staff to do an oil and air filter change and do a general check of the car in a set time TOUGH that's your issue not mine... anyways in the end I paid about 130 - 140% of the original quote instead of the 200%... the work done was fine but I never took my car back there...
The above issues in this thread are one of my concerns for the next car i was considering getting a in a few years time i don't want to be paying 40 - 50K for a car only to spend even more money modifying it and to have someone either do a half arsed job on it or severely overcharge just because it's not a commondore that anyone can work on...
I have dealt with Peter from Autotech and he was great. Advised me what he was doing and charged a reasonable amount for the work done. I think any mechanical work to be done next I will give Trojan a try unlike XXXXXX which has had a lot of mixed feedback Trojan seems to get overall better reviews.
/end rant...