I think readers should be aware of what I consider to be a very questionable practice by my local Vauxhall dealer.

I received a quote of £1310 to replace the DMF which included a new clutch. Warranty Direct would pay for everything but the clutch parts so their contribution was £690.

Allowing for about £60 because the dealer charged £7.50 per hour more that my £60 labour limit, this suggested that the clutch parts cost an eye-watering £560.

I then discovered that a Masterfit fixed price clutch change was £599 all in so I challenged them. They tried every trick in the book to explain why there was such a difference including telling me that I could have the £599 clutch swap but the add on cost of changing the DMF at the same time was £608.95.

I asked how this could be when they had already told me the DMF cost £184.24 plus VAT. Apparently this was a special price and the true cost of a DMF was £445.

I asked if they were seriously telling me that they had 2 prices for the same item - the lower if the customer asked for the DMF to be replaced and the higher if the request was to replace the clutch and do the DMF at the same time. It was at this point that I started mentioning scams and fraudulent practices whereupon they went away to "check the figures".

Within 5 minutes they rang back to say that I could have the clutch package and the lower cost DMF so the total cost would be £895.04. However they would be unable to split the clutch deal into parts and labour so they thought it unlikely that Warranty Direct would now pay all the labour so I might have to go back to the original deal if I was to claim.

I spoke to Warranty Direct who said there was absolutely no problem as the parts cost had already been agreed and the 6.2 hours labour was quoted on the invoice.