No, it wasn't one of those your-money-or-your-life situations. It was much more sneaky.

I have just put my nine-year-old Toyota through its MoT.

Now bear in mind the word Toyota – they're the cars you're not supposed to be able to kill, aren't they? Didn't Jeremy Clarkson prove they would start even if you set them alight, dropped them from great heights or drowned them?

A safe bet then, you would have thought.

Perhaps a little too safe for the garage I bought it from, shining and brand new all those years ago.

Now I'm a belt and braces kind of girl. I know it would be cheaper to take my old banger to a little garage to get it sorted out but it always felt safer to take it to the main dealer. That was until last Thursday.

I should have smelled a rat when a nice mechanic gave me a lift home from the garage – don't worry, it's not in Calderdale.

They were really busy, he said, with services and MoTs – but sales were down.

We chatted about the credit crunch and I thought no more about it.

Then the dreaded call came. The car had failed and needed a new chunk of exhaust. It would cost 600-odd quid.

I have to admit, I panicked. All I could think was "I need my car for work tomorrow" and I uttered those fateful words "just do it".

Then the second call came. The car was in bits but they couldn't separate the manifold from the exhaust so they would have to replace it. It would cost an extra hundred or so and I couldn't have the car back until Friday. The third call said sorry, Saturday and yes, it would cost about a grand. Which was the equivalent of a monsoon hitting my rainy-day savings.

On Saturday I got the call – the work was done and the bill was £1,360.

Yes, that's right, £1,360. The car isn't even worth that much.

When I looked at the work docket things had been replaced that I had not been told about, never mind agreed to pay for.

Which made me wonder, as sales fall are garages making ends meet by bumping up service charges?

Now at this point I should come up with an ingenious solution, some wheeze to make everything better.

Sorry, it's not going to happen. DIY is out of the question – I could go on as many courses as you like but I'm never going to be able to service a car. And anyway, you need degrees in computing, electrics and engineering to understand the things these days.

No, I'm afraid we are all at the mercy of these modern-day Dick Turpins. If you drive you are going to be mugged by garages and the Government.

And be warned, they are waiting to pounce.