The garages charging you £234 an hour for repairs

FRANCHISED garages linked to car manufacturers typically charge 40 per cent more for repairs, a report shows.

An investigation into more than 6,000 workshops uncovered labour costs of as much as £234 an hour.

Franchised garages charged an average of £99 an hour compared with £56 for an independent.

Some Porsche and BMW centres cost more than £200 an hour.

The £234 an hour fee – the highest in the study – was for a Porsche dealer in Reading.

That equates to £486,720 a year – three times the salary of the Prime Minister.

Surrey was the most expensive area for repairs with an average hourly rate of £84. The national average was £67.

Howard Cox, of the FairFuelUK campaign, said: ‘Drivers are not only ripped off by uncontrolled pricing at the pumps, high fuel taxation and threats of toxin charges, they are now facing extortionate servicing and repair costs.

‘The new government must introduce a fair motoring regulatory body to protect 37million UK drivers from serial exploitation.’

Behind Surrey in the list of the top ten most expensive regions came London (£77.42 an hour), Worcestershire (£77.16), Berkshire (£76.77) and Buckinghamshire (£76.65).

Selkirkshire was the cheapest area with an average hourly rate of £49.69, followed by the Shetland Islands at £53.25 and Inverness at £55.81.

The lowest charge from any workshop – an independent in Manchester – was just £36.

The report by car firm Motoreasy did not name the most expensive garages but a previous investigation from 2014 by Warranty Direct identified three BMW garages in London and the South East of England charging at least £200 an hour. Of 2,000 drivers questioned by Motoreasy, 62 per cent did not shop around to get the best price before agreeing to have work done.

And 31 per cent do not even check the bill before paying.

Women are worse than men for not checking what labour rate they are paying, with more than four in five admitting they do not know the hourly cost at their regular garage.