Yup thats partly what I suspected with the differences bet my two repair
shops. Although less than a mile apart the obviously have different running
costs, different sizes, but oddly a similar amount of mechanics. One also
has a pretty voice on the phone and a waiting room (complete with plants).

Still "how much to change a rear diff on a 320i coupe" has now become my
little test. Any garage that wants 3hrs or more labour at the "going
rates" is off the list unless there is serious justification for the
expense. (ie Mechanics are competant Female Bikini Babes and your are
invited to watch in your own private cubicle with complimentary beers etc
as they get a bit grimy with axle grease .. etc ..)

(sorry about the formatting...)

Michael Palin:  Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier
wine,
               ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam:  You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle:      Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin'
               here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye.  In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup
   o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup.  We used to have to drink out of a
   rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye.  BECAUSE we were poor.  My old Dad used to say to me, "Money
   doesn't buy you happiness."
EI: 'E was right.  I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'.  We used to
   live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the
roof.
GC: House?  You were lucky to have a HOUSE!  We used to live in one
   room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture.  Half the
   floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for
   fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM!  *We* used to have to live in a
   corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor!  Woulda' been a
   palace to us.  We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish
   tip.  We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting
   fish dumped all over us!  House!?  Hmph.
EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered
   by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and
   live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE!  There were a hundred and sixty
   of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky.  We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in
   a septic tank.  We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the
   morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work
down
   mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out.  When we got home,
   out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury.  We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock
in
   the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to
   work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and
Dad
   would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we
   were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough.  We used to have to get up out of the
shoebox
   at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our
tongues.
   We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four
   hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we
   got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right.  I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night,
   half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a
lump
   of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay
mill
   owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home,
   our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves
   singing "Hallelujah."
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't
   believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope..