My garage has just replaced a collapsed spring seat with an entire strut tube found in junk yard. I know I'm being cynical here but - imagine removing strut at yard, bringing to garage, removing my strut, then dismantling both strut assemblies and swapping tubes, in order to keep the shocks, disks, pads and calipers which were all replace (in pairs) in the last year.

Seems like a heck of a lot of work (vs. my suggestion of a spring seat 'sleeve' to be welded onto strut), plus I'm being charged $75 for the old part (vs. $35 for a new seat). This is an insurance claim so the garage is being paid for all its labor and I have to cover the parts.

To make this worse, I asked them to check out the U joints ('while you're down there') - mechanic said no way, he's not touching anything else on my car, too rusted, not roadworthy, not worth his while....yep, there are three holes in the floor pan needing welded, but this car's in mint condition compared with many other vehicles round my way.

The car will be driveable sure enough, but now requires urgent attention for UJ's. Needless to say, I'm not too happy (and pretty insulted by garage's attitude to the condition of the car).

And seeing as it's an insurance claim, they get paid for their call-out, tow truck, rental car and labor charges anyway, I am now wondering whether they are going to do all that work and how would I know anyway?

By the way, I am in France, where 'reputation' and 'customer service' are generally non existent worda, a main reason for me to distrust someone, plus there are only about five 240s in my whole state.

Any views appreciated....