Have I been ripped off? New to forum...

[LM22]

Hi there, I am after a bit of mechanical advice from those in the know!

I have a 95 Falcon station wagon which was shuddering and felt like it was really struggling badly when I put my foot down to accelerate...So we called a mobile mechanic service (I am sure you know the one!) to come out and fix the problem... We only had it serviced 7 weeks ago by the same guy who returned this time but with another guy as well...We explained the symptoms when they got here...

Firstly they checked the water, and found it to be really low, and they seemed very concerned by this...Asked if the car had been overheating to which we replied definately not (I assume they were thinking it was the head gasket?)...They then, without checking with us first performed a compression test...Shouldn't they have just performed a pressure test on the radiator? They found nothing with the compression test, and this cost $105 alone...They hadn't test driven it yet...

So then they took it for a drive, and thought it was probably the coil...They performed another test to confirm this and it was the coil...The mechanic asked my husband very rudely "Who changed the leads without changing the coil?", my husband told him that my father is an ex-mechanic and the car was his up until 2 years ago when he gave it to us, no one has touched the leads in that time...The mechanic then said "Well, the leads look brand new, tell him that next time, DONT change the leads without changing the coil" in a real smartarse voice...Is this correct? Must the leads be changed with the coil? My dad said he has not heard of this other than a way to make more cash from customers and to cover their ***** if something goes wrong...So the coil and leads cost us $150 and $72...

My next question is, that we had the car serviced 7 weeks ago...Just a minor service was done...Would the coil have been checked in that service, and could it have gone in that amount of time? Also, is it possible for the car to lose 2 litres of water in 7 weeks without a major leak being found? Did the guy possibly not check it properly last time? We were also charged another call out fee as the problem was not related to any work they did at the service 7 weeks ago...

I just feel a bit uneasy about the whole thing, wondering if we were ripped off with having to pay for a compression test and new leads?

Sorry this is so long, if anyone can answer my questions it would be much appreciated...

TIA