Rejecting a Car - Part 2!!

In Nov 08 I brought a one year old 'approved and inspected' BMW from a main dealer in Watford.

Several weeks after I brought the car the gearbox failed - this was duly repaired.

In April 09 I noticed a scuff mark on the bumper - I took the car to a BMW approved body-shop who pointed out that the car had been completely resprayed poorly with numerous body work problems. The car has began to rapidly deteriorate with micro blisters appearing on most panels. The dealer really didn't appear to be interested.

I involved BMW UK who have been absolutely fantastic - they arranged an inspection of the car by one of their regional managers who agreed the car is not of merchantable quality. A report was written and given to the dealer and only presented with this evidence have they started to take the problem seriously.

The dealer have stated that the car cannot be repaired and have agreed to replace it. This is where my problems lies. The dealer have applied depreciation to the car so I have lost over £4000 in the value of the car in just over 5 months - despite only doing approx 500 miles per month.

I feel this is unfair as the dealer should not have sold the car to me in the first place - they are offering to replace the car with one of higher mileage (40K miles compared with my 10K miles ) or pay the difference on a newer car. The newer car is priced at the 'going rate' so again the dealer will making more money out me.

Quotes taken from this site -

the car must be of satisfactory quality. Satisfactory quality is defined as what a ‘reasonable person’ would regard as acceptable, taking into account factors such as price paid, fitness for purpose specified, appearance and finish, safety and durability. If it becomes apparent that the car was not of the quality you were led to expect, you are quite within your rights to go back to the dealer, even after some weeks or even months of use. If it was the case that you were invited to carry out a thorough inspection of the car before purchase, and then you go back to complain about something which that inspection should have revealed, you will have no legal rights in that regard.

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An inspection was carried out but at this stage the faults were not apparent.

If the car cannot be repaired, if the repair is unsatisfactory, or takes an unreasonable length of time, your next option would be to have it replaced. If this is undesirable or impossible, then you can request a refund, although if some time has passed, you should be aware that any the refund given may well take account of any use you have had of the car since you took possession of it.

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Surely the dealer should take some of the responsibility and loss as this car should not have been sold in the first place - it appears to me that I am the only party losing out!

Any advice gratefully accepted