Quoted from zr11990:I took my wife's GMC Acadia to a transmission shop last year in September. He brought the car back to me and charged $1700 for rebuilding the transmission. Two days later my wife was stranded with the same problem. He took it back and returned it a month later and the trans self destructed in a week. He took it back and he still has it to this day. When I call, if he answers, he is always going to do something or do this or do that but I still have no car. He is rarely open supposedly due to health problems. I finally told him that if I didn't get my car back on or before the year anniversary that I originally gave it too him that I would start legal proceedings. What is the best way to go about it.
Small claims. Lawyers are too expensive for a case like this, you'd be upside-down before you started (and I doubt they'd take a case this small anyway). Small claims limit is $10,000 in Texas. Pay the filing fee (around $125, depending on your county - everything IS bigger in Texas, this is only $30-50 here in CA), bring your paperwork and argue your case, get a judgment. Then collecting on that judgement is the fun part. In small claims, you can only sue for actual expenses related to the repair that you can show receipts for, not stuff like inconvenience, lost utility, etc.
