Thanks for the interest. Our soliciterreceived a letter back from the garage which he said was written in a very conciliatory manner. he then suggested that to save money the matter should be passed to our local "Customer Protection Unit". They took up the case and after some further correspondence arranged a face to face metting with the garage's General manager with the Customer Protection Officer keeping the peace. This started off a bii unfriendly (mostly me!) but he showed us all the documents involved including what they had paid for the Picasso and what they had got for the C5. I was surprised that they had made so little profit. After a good discussion under the control of the CPO the garage offered to pay us the difference between the price we had paid what most other Picasso's were going for and add some extras. We are once again on good terms with the people there and having seen all the figures no longer think thae have been ripped off.

keep us updated, fingers crossed.

Thanks for the advice , huckster, yes we have contacted one of the legal advice websites and were told that we should write to the garage outlining our complaint and giving them a time kimit of 14 days to reply. That is what I have now done. I will post a follow-up when they do.

If the finance company have been repaid all the money, I doubt they would be interested.

I would think that it is now a legal dispute between you and the garage over the £3700. So you need to take legal advice with a view to taking action against the garage.

If the garage are retaining any monies they would have to justify this.

Speak to your solicitor or go to Citizens Advice.

Thanks Maxsteam, I phoned them this afternoon, I couldn't seem to get the girl to understand that I had given up one car with no refund and then bought another one from the same garage. She said that all she could advise was to talk to the finance company.

Consumer direct are sometimes good with similar problems. It's worth calling.

http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/

We have been dealing witha garage in Preston for the last 15 years. During thar time I have bought 5 cars form them and had all the servicing done by them. We had complete faith in them.
On Nov 3 2009 I traded in a 2007 Proton Impian (for £3000) and paid a £100 cash deposit on a £7500 Citroen C5 2.2 HDi VTR Auto. It proved to have a hidden fault with an occaisional total loss of power (once just as we were going onto a motorway.) I hate to think what would have happened if I had been in the fast lane. I rang the garage each time this happened and after the third time they asked me to take the car in for testing. They said they could find nothing. When we said that we did not trust the car anymore both the General Manager and the Sales Manager said they did not want us to take the car home and they would provide us with a different car. We, being naive (or stupid) as we had had the C5 for just less than 3 months assumed that this meant a straight swap. HOW WRONG WE WERE.
Because of our long association we signed the paper that they put in front of us. They had sold us anther car but we discovered too late that it was a stand-alone deal and we were had to pay FULL PRICE, we had to argue and get the price of this down as they were trying to charge us £1000 above the price they had been advertising this on the internet.
For the C5 they have taken back the car and allowed us absolutely NOTHING in refund or part-exchange. I have written to them complaining because we consider the C5 was NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE but so far they have not replied This shows to us that "GOOD CUSTOMERS and LOYALTY" is a one way street. We have lost £3700 in deposit and payments. They got s total of £7500 for the initial sale, they are paying back £4220 to the finance company and are keeping the car. Any ideas about what action we can take?