Sixty-eight pounds an hour, billed in quarter hours from the moment the car goes on the ramp to the moment it comes off. Most garages round up to the nearest hour, which is how a twenty-minute job becomes a sixty-minute invoice; we do not, and over a year it makes a real difference on the small stuff. Diagnostic time is charged at the same rate as repair time — there is no premium for thinking. If we diagnose a fault and you have us do the repair within fourteen days, the first diagnostic hour comes off the repair bill entirely.

Looking at your car in the yard and telling you what we think. Reading a fault code and telling you what it means. Giving a second opinion on somebody else’s written estimate. Fitting a wiper blade or a bulb you have bought yourself, if we are not busy. Collection and return within four miles of Frome town centre, and a courtesy car on any job over three hours booked at the same time as the work. Topping up your screenwash, which is not a service item but ought to be. We would rather have the relationship than the eleven pounds.

Every job over £150 gets a written quote by email or text before we start, itemised into parts and labour so you can see which is which. That figure is what you pay. If we open something up and find more work, the tools go down and you get a photograph and a revised figure to approve — and you are entitled to say no, take the car away, and pay only for the diagnostic time. We have never once put a job back together and invoiced somebody for work they did not agree to, and we are not about to start.