Our main car, as above has just had its main annual service and I was advised to have additional work at the same time - replacing a faulty offside driveshaft and stub. I will be having the front brake discs and pads replaced early February (about £300).

However, the garage (JCB Volkwagen, Ashford Kent) has recommended that other work is required: secondary heater mounts broken; breather on air box broken; bonnet release cable stretched (about £300 for the parts and labour quoted). JCB also suggest that I replace the centre clamp on the exhaust since the current one is too corroded to tighten and that the rear brakes pipe from caliper hose to joint is corroded (another £225 for these two jobs if I let JCB do them).

I cannot afford to replace this car at the moment and it runs well and has been a nice car to drive on the whole. I would envisage keeping it for perhaps two more years. I have always used JCB Ashford for servicing and maintenance and am quite happy with them, although I have always taken their suggestions on trust and have no reason to think they're attempting to rip me off. I should point out that I have not been pressurised to have this work done but lack the technical knowledge to know if this is worth having done.

However, JCB have just taken £1,000 off me and would like to take another £825. I am OK about the front brakes but need to know if they're recommending other non-essential work. I accept that
certain items will need to be repaired or replaced on an oldish car with fairly high mileage, but I would be very grateful if you could advise me as to which items are not safety related and which are simply not necessary to have repaired on my car.