Hello viewers of The Garage. Am I goign mad?

In a recent episode, a Renault Espace came in with no drive to the wheels. It was a broken drive shaft spline which is very cheap and easy to fix (2 hours). One of the mechanics spotted it was the drive shaft but the others thought it was the clutch (6 hours).

At the end of the segment the mechanic said it was "lucky" he was there because otherwise the customer would have been charged for at least 8 hours as they first would have mistakenly tried to fix the clutch.

Now is it just me or is that taking the proverbial? Surely the customer should not have to pay for the time they waste. I am not talking 30 minutes doing their diagnostics to ascertain the problem but if they just go head long into a clucth rebuild which is unnecessay - what has that got to do with the customer.

I mean why not stop there. Why not dismantle the engine head? Charge another few hours. It seems that this policy means that this garage can charge whatever they like. Their is no benefit to them having good mechanics because they can just charge the customer for all the time they take to solve problems.

Perhaps i am wrong - i genuinely would like to know what the concensus is on this. £800 or £200 is a big difference to pay. If that mechanic had been in the toilet or making a cup of tea, the other mechanics would have done the clutch. Is this what taking your car in to a grarage is like? It is a lottery? Ridiculous.

And these types are the first ones to ring up ABC No Win No Fee Lawyers to sue everyone whenever a doctor makes a mistake or a supermarket leaves out a wet floor and they slip.