Excessive play in wishbones was the reason. He want £125 for both...

I was forced to use a new garage as i needed the car ASAP and my usual garage was full....

I'm so ****ed off its unbelievable.

Have you any reason to doubt his opinion? Fairly common failure AFAIK. I certainly had them done on my Octy as it was wandering all over the motorway before and the steering was sloppy.

Why are you angry?

Surely you've noticed the sloppy cornering or at the very least spent all of 30 seconds looking at the bushes before you put it in for it's MOT, you know at the same time you cleaned the wiper blades and checked the fluid levels, suspension and bulbs? Either way it's a common fault and one that's easy to verify. The dealer rate for bushes fitted was circa £170ish upwards when I called both the local ones and they're reasonable compared to the prices others have been quoted. Speaking to the local indy he'd book it at 1.5-2hrs + parts though some can do it in a lot less so the quote seems quite reasonable.

I'd be more annoyed if i'd gone somewhere and they passed the car with knackered bushes which is what happened to my cars previous owner for years because he only did 2k a year.