Responsibilities of a car shop

They might be but you should have the engine inspected by an expert mechanic to find out. This is part of Bailment Law, which is different from state to state but here are the general rules. When you take a car to a repair shop for them to look it over or repair something, in most states you create what the law calls a "bailment" contract. That requires the shop to take reasonably good care of the car while it is in their custody. Then when the shop does any kind of work on your car, unless they use special language to avoid giving you a warranty, in most states you automatically get a warranty that they are going to do the work in a "good workmanlike manner." That basically requires that they do the repair or service work right. If they don't, then you have a right to recover damages for what they do wrong or the damage they cause (or, if they don’t return the car at all, for the value of the car itself). But you have to be able to prove that the reason for your new problems is something that the repair shop did or did not do. In other words, you have to be able to show that it was fault of the repair shop. The one exception to that is under a bailment contract, like you have here, where they return the vehicle back to you and it is not in substantially the same condition that it was in when you gave it to them. Under that circumstance, in many states the repair shop may have the burden of proof to show that they are not the reason for the new problem. Because the law is different in each state you need to talk to a local Consumer Law attorney. Call your local attorney's Bar Association and ask for a referral to a Consumer Law attorney near you or you can go to this web site page for a Free Online 50 State National List of Consumer Law Lawyers (http://www.ohiolemonlaw.com/ocll-site/ocll-locate_local.shtml) and find one near you (lawyers don’t pay to get listed here and most of them are members of the only national association for Consumer Law lawyers, NACA.net). But act quickly because for every legal right you have, there is only a limited amount of time to actually file a lawsuit in court or your rights expire (it's called the statute of limitations), so don't waste your time getting to a Consumer Law attorney and finding out what your rights are. If this answer was helpful, please check the box below.