My car has done 86K, it is nearly 7 years old.

Recently I had an annual service done. When I collected the car back the person told me that there was significant gap in the wheel alignment and he fixed that for me. A few days later I could start hearing a loud noise (not good at describing noises!), which was constant and grew louder the faster I drove. I took at back to the garage and the person said that the wheel bearings is the cause. He is charging me 46 quid for the parts called - Hub Kit, and 123 quid for labour for 2.5 hours! Lots of questions!

1. Do you think anything done shoddily or indirectly during the repair of the wheel alignment has now caused this wheel bearing problem?

2. Does it really take 2.5 hours of labour to fix the wheel bearing on a Citroen C3? Thats nearly half a day's work!

A separate point is that I discovered that after the service the person had changed the engine oil but left the lid open. So the entire engine area was splashed with oil. I only discovered this by accident one week (and after driving 800 miles) when I lifted the bonnet to fill windscreen wipe fluid. I was shocked to see the lid sitting beside and the entire area soaked in oil. What affect might this have? The service station have apologised and replaced the engine oil.

Any answers would be very grateful received, as everytime I visit a service station I feel like an idiot and feel I am getting ripped off!

Edited by c3driver on 19/02/2011 at 21:56