Hey guys, my sister bought a '02 fiesta from a used car dealer in lyneham about 8 weeks, when viewing it the following was noticed, remote central locking not working, cd player won't play cd's, lacquer and paint chipped down one side, power steering fluid low. the garage agreed to fix all the faults, they are all listed on the sales receipt, the car has now been back several times and nothings fixed. first time they got their paint guy to touch up the paintwork, it's a completely different colour and he's missed all the lacquer chips, they said they can't do anything with the locking and stereo so tough, new steering rack on order. after much arguing key fob was tested by a mate on a sealey fob tester, it shows a strong signal emitted when buttons pressed so assumed working, after speaking to a local ford dealer they said the locking ecu's can fail so another has been sourced, today dealer fitted it still said they can't get it to work, if she wants cd player fixing she'll have to pay £100 for it and they forgot to order steering rack.

The dealer is affiliated to a main ford dealer (different one to the one i got advice about locking ecu), now do ford not have any diagnostics kit that they could hook up that will tell them whether the fault is with the fob or the car, the service manager from the ford dealer said they will supply a fob and program it at cost (£60) but salesman won't pay for it and im loathe to if it won't fix the problem, what happened to diagnostics and not just replacing parts? from speaking to a paint guy she knows apparently to fix the lacquer properly would require respraying that side of the car which he said would be about £500 which the dealer is never going to go for and i won't be happy if they fill the chips in with a touch up stick.

where should she go from here? im for telling them to have the car back and refund her money as they've failed to meet the sales agreement, problem with this is they'll drag there feet and the car runs well and seems reliable which is the important thing but i don't see why she should be paying another £700 to have it put right (which is incidently just over the amount we managed to get of the window price.) the other option i suppose is to write to the financial ombundsman but that will take forever and not sure if they' be any use?

cheers
chris