I wondered what your thoughts are on the pricing of minor trim parts by manufacturers? I recently suffered the misfortune of losing the cover from one of my door mirrors on my 2011 Qashqai. No worries, I thought, no damage to the unit and it's only a few pence worth of moulded plastic, but not so it seems. My dealer was very good and supplied the part within 48 hours but was very, very apologetic about the price of just over £71 for a part which is not even colour finished but matt grey and for which I will have to pay a similar amount again to have it painted. A total cost, therefore, of around £150 for something that Nissan fits by the thousand and which must be literally pence to them.

When I politely queried this with Nissan they were dismissive, saying after three attempts to gain an answer, that they have a special department dedicated to ensuring their parts are competitive bearing in mind all their "special costs" for stocking the part, distribution etc. They ignored every time my secondary query as to why they cannot even supply a finished part at least for this extraordinary sum. Is this sort of pricing truly universal as they seem to suggest?