Question regarding money back from garage

[Jomummy1013]

Hi, not sure if this is a legal question as such but here goes.
Recently my car broke down, got recovered by the AA and taken to my usual garage. The car's engine management was throwing up the code for the fuel pump. When the garage looked at the car, it was starting intermittently and they told me it wasn't the fuel pump as they could hear it working. When the car continued to start intermittently and the code coming back was still the fuel pump code, they replaced the fuel pump anyway, as they didn't know what else to do.
Anyway I collected the car, it was ok for a week but then broke down again, same problem. Went back to the garage. They said to me they don't know what else to do with it as only code was fuel pump and said they were basically washing their hands of it.
Upon googling, I found another highly recommended garage and took the car there. They diagnosed the actual fault, and the car was repaired promptly and cost me a lot less than the actual repair the car did not need.
My question is, do I have grounds to try and recover at least the labour costs for the part the car did not need? Cost me £350, most of that is the labour charge! Should I contact the garage? Tbh I don't have a lot of spare cash and that did wipe me out. Or would I be wasting my time?

The question is whether they used reasonable care and skill. Unless you get an engineer's report that says the first garage should have been able to diagnose the fault (or, at the very least, that they shouldn't have replaced the fuel pump), you are unlikely to succeed with a legal case against them.

Of course, you can try contacting the garage and see what they say without getting a report. It may be that they will process a refund without legal action. If you paid by credit card, you can try your credit card provider as well. But, if they deny liability, you will need a report.

@prh47bridge thank you so much. Extremely helpful x