Our survey

Our survey
We called five franchised and five independent garages at 10 locations around the country to get quotes for a first service on a Citron Grand C4 Picasso, a Jaguar XF and the previous-generation Volkswagen Golf.

We used each of the respective manufacturers' websites to find franchised workshops or approved repairers. To be sure we'd get minimum standards of service for independent garages, we used the Motor Industry Code of Practice for Service and Repair (www.motorindustrycodes.co.uk).

Where we couldn't find enough workshops through this website, we turned to the Bosch and Unipart networks, which have their own codes of practice to ensure minimum standards.