reclaiming money from dodgy garage!

sugarplumclareyfairy

hi there, i'm a bit of a newbie so please be nice! i'm looking for advice or precedent...

approx 6 weeks ago our car had to go into the garage as it had broken down while my husband was on business (200 miles from home). we phoned the aa and took it to the nearest garage which happened to be a halfords (massive mistake). the garage took a look at it and told us that 2 sensors (fuel ones i think) were faulty amd needed to be replaced. so we paid £400 to have this done. we thought the car was fixed, but on the way home from the meeting, after about 100 miles, the car started having the same problems as it had had before it broke down. so the net day, we phoned halfords and they said take it to your nearest branch, they will replace the sensors free of charge. they did this, all was well for another 24 hours and then the same thing happened AGAIN. and again they said faulty parts, take it back in. by now, the car had more problems than it had before it broke down the first time. so we took it back in and they said that now the fuel injectors were gone and it would be £400 to have them refurbished and re-fitted. we argued that the only reason they had broken was because we'd had to drive a faulty car as they hadn't fixed it properly in the first place. they said we'd have to pay or we couldn't have the car back. i had 3 hospital appointments the following week so i agreed to pay and told them we needed the car back to get to the appointments. 3 days after the car was supposed to be ready, they said that the new fuel injectors were now costing £550 and that there was an extra charge because the engine needed flushing out (petrol in a diesel engine apparently) and the air filter needed replacing. so our bill now stands at £800 on top of the £400 we paid for the new fuel sensors.

this is how i see it:

either... they didn't sort the problem properly in the first place which has made the problem worse,

or... they did something to the engine when it originally went in to the garage to cause the extra problems.

either way, i've been without a functioning car now for nearly 6 weeks, and i'm £1200 out of pocket because someone at halfords didn't do their job properly. what i want to know is, has anyone on here claimed back their money (or part of it) from a garage in a similar situation as this? if you have, how did you go about it? i am just so upset about the whole thing that i don't know what to do next. if the garage would've told us the exact problems and charged us £1200 to start with, i wouldn't have been happy, but at least i would've had a working car again and known that it was "just one of those things" instead of wondering if something they've done (or neglected to do) is part of the problem.

thanks in advance

sugarplum

forgotmyname

Sounds like they got it wrong to start with. Was the car misfuelled?

Pump breaking up? This puts swarf through the system and requires a good flush to remove it all.

I would start with a complaint to the head office, With a view to getting the initial £400 back.
They could say it came in not working and went out working.

If its all been replaced then i doubt an engineers report will find anything to help your case.

Complaint 1st then maybe start your own facebook page to tell the story of their shoddy workmanship. But remain calm and only put the truth.
Worked for people before.

Nothing worse for a company than a website saying how bad they are coming in higher than their website.