On Tue, 8 Oct 2019 09:35:37 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

I took my car in to have two centre prop shaft bearings replaced and
they have damaged the front coupling to the transfer box - it now has
play in it.

I wrote a letter by recorded delivery explaining why I knew that this
was the case, and asking them to contact me to take the matter forward.
They have ignored it.

I am not sure how to proceed, Assuming that this ends up in the small
claims court I am conscious of the need to proceed with caution. Should
I insist that they fix it?

Yes. A court will expect you to have followed the pre-action
protocols’ and have tried to settle the claim before the last resort
of getting to court. Having another garage fix it without giving
the original garage an opportunity to do so and then going to court to
claim the cost would be unlikely to succeed.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/la...a-small-claim/

You should write to the garage setting out your claim objectively but
not trying to tell them what caused the fault, so simply "excessive
vibration from drive shaft immediately following work by you on
bearings" Ask them to investigate and fix it .

Full instructions on using MoneyClaim (the most appropriate way to go)
are at
https://assets.publishing.service.go...-eng.pdfonline
I am concerned that I am using a car that may
damage itself further if driven with an out of balance prop shaft. Or
should I get it fixed elsewhere, and claim the money back? The cost of
doing that ranges from a new 'spider bearing' at £36 plus labour through
an after market prop shaft assembly at £100 plus labour to a full Land
Rover OEM part at £200+ plus labour at main dealer prices.

My question is really how the court would look on each approach. I.e.
should I fix it and claim and if so at what level?

No.

Or should I take them
to court before fixing it so they have the option of fixing it for free?
And to what level should the (pretty old) car be fixed?

The latter, and the remedy is confined to fixing any damage that they
caused, so you can't expect to get a new drive train installed when
the fault they caused was to one bearing. You may need to have the
car examined by an expert (another garage for example) to show the
fault was caused by their mistake. The cost of that examination and
report can be added to your claim.