But isn't car repair work a similar story across the board?
You want, say, an exhaust replacing, the garage quotes you a price for the work based on cost of parts plus, say, 2 hours' labour.
in actual fact, the labour only takes half an hour.
I'll bet if you were to tot up all the hours a big garage charges for, you'll find each mechanic has, on paper, worked a 30 hour day but the reality being they've only done 8.
Another good reason for finding & using the local mech with a good rep.
Forgot to add, I also wonder just how many garages bump up their repair costs simply because they know an insurance is covering it?
Many years ago some nob took out the front of my car. Typical of the time, the car had a large nose with a small engine & heaps of space around it. The repairer charged my insurance for new bumper - ok, bonnet, wings, front struts - ok, radiator - ? fog lights? distributor? Leads ?
I querried the repair when they asked me to sign for it because the fogs were a set I bought from a well-known motor factor up north, own brand & not available down south - and they hadn't been replaced. the distributor still had dobs of marker where I had changed the leads so I knew exactly where each lead went. The leads were some special long life silicone jobbies - again, hadn't been replaced, and the rad, well. even though it had been pushed back, it wasn't damaged at all.
