Problems with garage - can I take things further?

smezzer

Looking for some advice on how to take things further with a garage due to their incompetence - here's the basic story:
A few weeks ago I took my car in for a minor adjustment on the tracking and handbrake. On my way home the car steering lost control, and the breaks came on suddenly when I was driving at 50 miles an hour. Thankfully there was no damage done - except to my nerves, but there could have been - had to call the RAC who said that they had over tightened the handbrake, which had caused the brakes to overheat, and the steering needed to be looked at. I took it into my usual garage for them to look over it and they said that the tracking was really out and had not been done correctly, and readjusted the handbrake.
I've wrangled with the original company and they eventually offered to pay my garage to repair any issues that were caused by them. I was then told that I had to return the car to their garage to get the tracking done again as my garage does not carry out tracking and balancing. So reluctantly I took my car to them to do the job again properly. When I did they said that the gage wasn't working and they couldn't do it that day! I was not happy, and my car didn't feel great to drive, so I took it to another garage to have it done and paid them separately and was told that the tracking was so far out that it wasn't safe to drive at all. This was not something that would have happened if it had just been done, or by hitting a pothole. It was dangerous!
This whole sage went on for a couple of weeks and I was without a car for that time, while the two garages bashed heads over who was at fault.
Now I have my car back, I also have a bill for tracking done elsewhere along with public transport tickets etc. I believe I can claim back consequential losses from the original company and 100% refund on the money I paid them originally. How should I go about this?
Also, due to the fact that the car was fine when it went in, and really dangerous when it left and unroadworthy, that could have caused a serious accident, do I have any legal redress for inconvenience and negligence because of their incompetence? If so how should I go about pursuing this further? TIA

mattyprice4004

You'd only have grounds for a negligence claim if harm actually occurred - but as no crash etc happened that'll be a non-starter.

You also can't have a double-whammy refund and claim back the original cost AND the amounts you've paid to other garages - after the ordeal you'll have the original issues sorted, so you need to have paid something for this. I'd expect the first garage to cover all of the consequential issues you've had, but not a refund from them because you'll have had the issue resolved.

As for the inconvenience factor, you can only claim for provable losses - anything else would be a goodwill gesture on their part.