 Help needed please
The story so far. November 2006 put my car into a local garage with a slight misfire; they tell me no compression on one of the cylinders and need to strip the head off to investigate. I gave them the go ahead to do that. Next day they phone to say valves have gone ruined the piston and head.
Now the fun starts. The garage told me they had sourced a 2nd hand engine from a company and they would fit it for £1600 including the cost of the engine, but would I pay for the engine. This I did and paid with credit card.
December 8th the engine is delivered to the garage, I phoned to enquire how long it would take. Garage said a couple of days as the old engine was out of the car. 2 weeks later and numerous phone calls in which time I was given every excuse as to why the car wasn’t ready, the garage phone me to say there is a problem with the engine. No problem I said there is 90 day guarantee with the engine inform the company that supplied it and get another. Trouble is now it’s just before Christmas and the garage is closing for 2 weeks.
January phoned the garage to find out what’s happening, told you supplied the engine therefore it’s your problem not ours. We are not doing any more work on it. So phoned the company that supplied the engine. The owner of the garage had phoned them and not sure exactly what happened but they was a disagreement over whether it was a fault with the engine or the fitting of the engine.
The garage and the people who supplied the engine wouldn’t talk to each other. At this point took advice from Consumer Direct.
Now into February nothing happening on the car, so wrote the garage a letter saying I wasn’t happy with the situation, and saying I didn’t think they had provided a service with the necessary skill required or within a reasonable time. I would remove the car pay his bill under protest have the work done elsewhere and recover losses against the garage.
All of a sudden he starts talking to the engine suppliers and agrees to take out the “faulty” engine and replace it with another one from the same company.
Another engine is delivered and another 2 weeks later the garage phone to say there is a problem with this engine. Worth pointing out at this point the garage did not inform me that they thought this was the same engine.
Recommended average time to fit this type of engine 15-20 hours.
Now thoroughly fed up I inform the garage I will remove the car. Arrangements made to remove the car and get it transported to the company that supplied the engine for them to fit another. I managed to get the car out of the garage without paying the bill.
Car transported to the engine supplier who fit another engine everything fine. Total cost of transport and paying the engine supplier’s bill £2300.00.
Now the original garage come back to me and ask for their money, I explain about how much it has cost me to date, and ask if they think it’s fair for me to pay another £1000.00. Told him to take me to court, which he did, so I put in a counter claim in for the amount over his original quote which was £700.00.
Now all the time I was getting advice from consumer direct, many phone calls and lots of notes, their advice was as the engine was sourced and requested by the garage it was his responsibility even though I paid for it. This was my defence. I have a letter from the engine supplier stating they dealt with the garage over the engine and my only contact with was to give card details for payment.
Felt fairly confident going to court, date set for the hearing turned up just to be told by the judge had considered the case and I had to pay the garage. I wasn’t allowed to put an argument to him, he just wasn’t interested in anything I had to say. The garages defence was they supplied me with the number of the engine supplier and I dealt with them.
So what I’m asking is where do I go next. Any help would be greatly appreciated. | 
