Cheques taking longer to clear

I have been waiting for a cheque from a car finance company to clear with the garage from which I am buying a new car.

So far the bank has had the cheque for 6 days and it has not cleared yet. Apparently the garage had a letter from their bank telling them that cheques would now take 7 days to clear.

Pretty scandalous, considering the OFT were meant to be cracking down on it when it was 3-5 days as standard.