My uncle used to wire aeroplanes so car electrics are nothing to him, he can do basic machanical stuff like spark plugs, clutches and he replaced the engine on his Rover 25. I suppose what he probably can't do is stuff like stripping down gearboxes and stuff like that.

We were charged £60 for a new door handle last year, the cable was £5. There is no way it could have taken them long to do. It is stuff like that were you get ripped off. Stuff like the lambda sensor you don't mind paying a lot of labour for because like you say the test equipment is expensive.

It will be interesting to find out just how much profit a medium sized garage (i.e not one man mand mechanic) actually makes.