My 4 year old Fabia with 59000 miles on the clock has developed a gearbox fault.

The Skoda dealer from whom I bought it 3 years ago wants £320 to find out what the fault is.

Skoda UK has been no help.

£320 just for a diagnosis, then more on top to fix it?! Sounds abit odd to me. They should investigate the problem then tell you what's wrong and how much it will cost to fix. I'd take it to another garage mate. Out of warranty too so no need to stick with a main dealer either, might be worth going to a decent independent.

Mcclung, welcome to the site. Sorry to hear you have a gearbox problem. Please can you describe the problem and is it a problem that is there all the time or just when the car is hot or cold? On the point about a garage charging for diagnosis, that pretty normal for cars not under warranty on such a big job. But I have to say that most problems are not too hard to diagnose without a strip down. But it does depend on the nature of the problem. Come back with some more info please. 

Took car to a gearbox specialist. He knew straight away what the problem was - a bearing in gearbox gone - apparently a very common fault with this gearbox.

Repair has been done costing almost £400.

As a matter of interest the bearing is Italian.