Bought A Used Engine With A 90 Day Warranty. 28 Days Into Warranty The Engine Is Dead And Company Refuses To Honor Warranty. In Colorado.

I own and operate a small repair shop. I have places I typically buy used engines from. But I was trying to do a favor to a school teacher who is a friend of mine. So I shopped for other locations that offered a warranty but were less expensive then I typically shop at.

I found a company that sold JDM engines for about 1k less (1999) than I could get anywhere else. It came with a 90 day warranty. So I gave it a go. Before installing the engine I did a leak down test at the company I was purchasing it from's shop and the engine tested well at that time. The engine was installed with no issues. Ran well at the shop and on the multiple test drives. Owner picked it up and drove it for a couple weeks. Contacted me with an intermittent check engine. Found random multiple misfires. Didn't do a leak down or compression test at that point since the engine was running smoothly for me. Tried some coils and some higher heat spark plugs. Gave the vehicle back to the owner and same issues.

Did a compression test and leak down on the engine and found low compression on all cylinders and it failed the leak down.

I contacted the company my shop bought the engine from and the response I got was "You tested the engine here and it was in great shape!". I explained my testing of the engine and asked if he was going to honor his warranty. His response was "I'm not sure what tell you. Cause the engine was in perfect condition when we gove it to you".

I can't leave my customer in the lurch so I purchased a second engine from a place I typically go to for just over 3k. I also loaned the customer a vehicle while I tried to get the company to honor the warranty, and while I tracked down an engine and installed it after the company wouldn't honor their warranty.

So my expenses on this so far are the cost of the first engine, the cost of the second engine, the cost of the rental and perhaps the cost of legal fees since I am going to have to go to court on this I think. I am at 6593 in damages. I don't think I can claim the labor costs of replacing the engine since the first one I purchased was just a parts warranty. I knew going in if the engine didn't work that was on me.

My question is does this qualify for asking for treble damages or punitive damages?