When I went to have my Hyundai i10 car serviced after 18 months and with only 25,000 miles on the clock, the mechanic in the franchised dealer said that the clutch would need replacing, due to "wear and tear" within 5000 miles.

I wrote to Hyundai and the garage asking that Hyundai would honour the requirement for a replacement if necessary, via their "legendary" 5 year warranty. Customer Services only advised me to write to the Franchised dealer, who never replied to my e-mails. A week before Christmas, the clutch died.

Neither the dealer (the service manager who admitted to me that a clutch failure was a common fault with the i10s) nor the national service centre have shown any willingness to help with the cost either via the warranty nor as a gesture of goodwill.

In over 300,000 miles over 30 years driving, I have needed to have a clutch replaced on two occasions, a VW Passat having done over 80,000 and a VW Sharan which had done over 105,000 miles. I feel very let down by Hyundai and would like to warn other customers about this experience. Do I have any recompense to try and recover my money?