Story time: 5 weeks ago I put my car into a garage to have both the rear wheel bearings replaced, both rear drop links replaced and the front off side track rod replaced. It took them 2 weeks to sort it due to old rusted bolts, etc that bad to be replaced.

Got the car back about 3 weeks ago and since then I’ve done probably just over 300 miles. Start using the car on Friday just gone and I start getting a strange noise. Could not figure out where it was coming from but initial thoughts were a clutch problem as it got louder whenever I pressed the clutch. Fast forward to Friday night and I’m driving home when suddenly the back end went loose, the car drops and starts sliding everywhere and then my rear near side wheel goes rolling past me at about 40mph. Thankfully I was able to keep control and bring the car to a stop.

Had a number of issues getting the car back because of where it happened (in a tunnel where normal recovery is not allowed), however I called the garage that did the original work and they are refusing to accept any liability or do the repairs for free. So here is the situation:

1. I only had 5 of the 6 lug nuts on each wheel as I lost my locking nut key about 8 months ago (yes I know it’s an MOT failure) and had to get the locking nuts drilled off
2. Even with only 5 nuts I’ve done probably over 1000 miles and the wheel has been off multiple times before it went to this garage (replacement tyres and myself doing fault finding)
3. The garage told me when I picked it up that it was missing a nut on each wheel, however they never told me it was dangerous to drive the car with 1 out of 6 nuts missing (yes in hindsight I should have known)
4. The garage are now saying that lug nuts should be replaced every 3-5 times they are taken off as they become warped and can break (I’ve never heard of this before and I’ve owned a lot of cars in the last 22 years)
5. When they did the initial work they had to do the wheel alignment and they are saying that after a wheel alignment it puts extra pressure on the nuts because it’s not used to the new alignment. If this is the case which I think is complete BS then why didn’t they advise me of that

So now I don’t know where I stand. They are refusing to do the work for free when in my eyes they are clearly at fault for not tightening the nuts enough. Yes you can say I should have checked but when you spend £800 getting work done at a garage you don’t expect to have to check it afterwards.

I can potentially claim it on the insurance but that could affect my no claims and I’d have to pay the £200 excess. I had to pay out £194 this morning just to get the car released from the recovery place and the RAC are trying to charge me for specialised collection (that’s a more complicated story). I’m worried that if I claim on my insurance they’ll just write it off due to the age of the car and potential cost of repairs.

Any advice would be welcome.

Dave