I bought a brand new VW Golf in Lincoln, but at the time of supply it had no less than 5 faults that I could identify (scratched radio, loose cables in the engine, crooked gear knob, rear washer jet leakage, ineffective windscreen wipers). I accepted the car on the proviso that all these issues get fixed at the first available opportunity, but not before the salesman had tried to polish out the scratch on the touch-screen radio, and told me that the rattle from the engine would ‘bed in’ (it turned out to be a loose clutch hydraulic cable).

As it was, they fixed all of these faults with the exception of the rear washer leakage, which I note is a common fault on the VW forums. During my first long journey, the rear seats appeared to be rattling after about 90 mins of driving. I contacted ‘Lookers’ VW in Lincoln about this, and they again took the car from me. They reported hearing the rattling, and they decided to lubricate the door seals as a possible remedy.

However, it did not solve the problem. I re-reported the rear rattling, and they took it for three days of tests. I also reported that the noise attenuation on the radio, during parking sensor operation, was no longer working. The Brand Manager, Norman Jones, came to my office at this time to offer me £200 of vouchers for the inconvenience, and said that they wanted ‘one last go’ to find the fault, after which they would look at building a new car.

They did three ineffective road tests, of 30 mins, 45 mins, and 60 mins, and as they could not find the rattle, they refused to accept a rejection. In addition, they also said there was no problem with the radio when compared to other models, but it transpired that in swapping the scratched radio head unit for a new one, they had forgotten to re-code it for the ‘Dynaudio’ speaker system that I had factory-fitted.

So as with the rattling clutch cable, their sales & management department has been giving me duff information, only for me to find out the real story from the technicians.

I have subsequently taken that dealership’s head of servicing on a 3-hour drive, to prove to him that there is a rattle after a period of operation. He was able to hear the noise, and reported this back to the Brand Manager. As they had failed to find the fault during their ‘one last go’ of extensive testing, I now wish to reject the car. However, the Brand Manager is saying that now we have identified the fault, then THIS is what he meant by ‘one last go’, and I should give them the car back for another attempt at a fix. Incidentally, the car has begun rattling from the dashboard too, which was something the head of servicing pointed out to me on our test run.

I am not convinced that, after a series of basic manufacturing faults, and dealership ineptitude, that this Golf is a very good car. I like the actual model, but this particular one is clearly duff. VW UK say that because I have made the contract of sale with the dealership, they must choose to accept the rejection. The dealership keep saying they need to defer to VW UK.

So my question is, as I am not happy with the car I bought on 15 May 12, how do I reject it under the letter of the law?