I really hope that some knowledgeable person can cure my heartache with this one?

On 6th June this year, I purchased an 07 plate Berlingo van from a motor dealer near Sheffield. I was told that it had a 3 months warranty with the vehicle, which was through the RAC.

At the onset everything was fine, untill after exactly 8 weeks it broke-down, with plumes of white smoke coming from the exhaust, a whinning noise from the engine and a lackof power!

I phoned the supplying trader, who told me to phone the RAC warranty people to report the problem. This I did. The call handler took my details and told me to either take the van back to the dealer (20+ miles away) or to any vat registered garage. The garage that undertakes all my motor servicing was just 1 mile away, so not to risk any further damage I decided to take it there.

They examinined the vehicle and diagnosed the turbo was the problem. The RAC instructed the garage to remove the failed turbo and dispatch it to a specialist tubro company. This they did.

After a couple of days I phoned the garage, who told me they had heard nothing, so I took the decision to phone the RAC warranty department myself. They told me that the repair was not coverd by my policy because they thought the part had failed because of oil stravation inside the turbo. This being wear and tear. My policy document, however lists the turbo unit has being covered!

I complained about this the the RAC warranty deptartments senior engineer, who told me this failure was common place in all cars using my engine type and was a flaw in the basic design of the engine! They refused to honour the warranty.

I went on the complain about this to the RAC OPS team who informed me the RAC warranty arm isn't really by the RAC at all - but a company called TWG, simply using the RACs identity. They went on to say that 'a part is not generally covered if a lack of maintainance has caused the failure'. I would accept this if I'd had the van for a year or more and not bothered having it serviced - but find this a liitle difficult to accept after just 8 weeks. Especially so, when the dealer fully serviced the van before I took delivery!

At this point I contacted the supplying dealer once again, who told me they would contact the RAC warranty department on my behalf to plead my case. This was done by them without any success. I then phoned Consumer Direct about the matter, but the advice was more than a little vague, other than to say my complaint should be aimed at the seller.

Finally, in desperation, I visited the dealer in person to ask them to do anything in there power to sort this out for me. The saleman said he would talk to The RAC Warranty rep and one of the companies directors and get back to me. Now 3 dayslater I haven't heard anything. Its now over 3 weeks since this saga began and I'm finding life without the van a real struggle - can anyone offer advice so I can sort this out - please?