Mechanic responsible for rental car?

[smeltings]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
Massachusetts

Short of it: Due to shotty work by my mechanic I had to rent a car for 6 days. I am wondering if he should be responsible for the rental fees.

Situation: My car went into the shop on a Monday for a repair that the warranty company said should take 10 hours. The shop said that the car might be ready on Monday, but possibly on Tuesday. No mention was made of the possibility of extending beyond Tuesday.
During the day Tuesday, they said that they should finish soon. Toward the end of the day, they said they needed to keep the car to make sure all oil leaks were found and fixed and that they were nearly done (jobs were to replace the mass air flow, and to replace an internal seal that required significant labor hours to take apart the engine and reassemble).
I then had to go and rent a car to use on Wednesday.
Wednesday was the same as Thursday: they thought they would finish, but didn't. Thursday was the same. I got the car back on Friday afternoon.
- I had three days of car rental that were unanticipated, and seemingly due to their inability to get the job done in reasonable time.

- Over the weekend, the car began stalling and had problems starting. I left the car at the shop and I had to rent a car for that Monday. I received the car back on Monday; they said that the problem was a sticky throttle body.

-The car then worked okay until this weekend, when the same stalling/starting problems occurred. Again, I left it at the shop today (Sunday) and I had to rent a car for tomorrow.

-Prior to receiving the car back from the initial repair, the car did not have this problem with stalling and starting.

The first rental (for three days) was due to the mechanic not finishing the job in a timely fashion.
The second two rentals was apparently due to a problem caused by the mechanic.

Should the mechanic be liable for the rentals?

THANKS!

 

[ecmst12]

How do you know that the mechainc CAUSED the second problem and it wasn't just a coincidence?

Auto repairs often take longer then anticipated. That's why it's an ESTIMATED completion date not definite.

 

[smeltings]

How do you know that the mechainc CAUSED the second problem and it wasn't just a coincidence?

Auto repairs often take longer then anticipated. That's why it's an ESTIMATED completion date not definite.

ecmst12, thanks for the response.
Yes, I know too well that repairs often take longer than anticipated. But to go from and estimate of 1-1.5 days to 5 days (for a repair that was supposed to take 10-12 hours), indicates to me that they had trouble with what was a complex but straightforward job or they were putting it off and doing other work. I can't make sense, for example, why on the end of Tuesday they would say that the mechanic just needed a short time to close it all up and then on Wednesday they would say, well just two more hours, and,etc. until Friday. I understand that things might happen that would cause a repair to take longer than the standard for the profession, but after a certain point, I think that they should be responsible for this inability.

I can't know that the throttle body went bad due to their actions, so, in the end, I can not hold them responsible (at least not in the legal sense). However, it seems likely that their actions lead to the throttle body getting junked and sticky to the point of no longer being "good", as can happen when doing a serious repair that involves taking the engine apart. It seems more likely that the problem with the throttle body was caused by them than the throttle body problem coincidentally starting right after picking the car up from the 5 day repair.