The rules for small claim in England states that you must make reasonable attempts to resolve the issue and you may also be expected to go to mediation before the court will accept the case. There also must be a written request for compensation and a time allowed for a response. Given this has just started I think all the talk of court action is jumping the gun a bit. Come next week when alleged absent managers are back it might well all get sorted out amicably.
This is far from the first time someone has rejected a bike from BMW and from what I can see they have all ended pretty well.
I agree with all of this. You must make a good attempt at resolution first, which it sounds like the guy has, it's been going on for over a year.
My point about small claims comes from experience of spending a lot of money with solicitors only to realise they have no power to enforce anything, only a court judge of some sort has the power, so any number of letters from your favourite solicitor, personal phone calls and meetings with the dealer are all worthless if the dealer chooses to avoid or stall your case. At the end of the day BMW themselves can just chuck any letter in the bin but a court summons cannot be ignored though, so the choices are either rely on your statutory / consumer rights of which lets hope the dealership take note of and sort it out now, or employ a solicitor to represent a full on court case - very expensive and should be avoided. A cheaper option is to consider the small claims court if that applies.
In my earlier post I have suggested the guy should gather evidence in the form of letter headed paper from the dealer stating all of the times and dates of attempts to fix the problem. This is evidence one can use for any action you wish to take and should now be the first step in resolution. By doing this evidence gather, the dealership will realise you are serious, and from their response to your request for this information the guy will be able to gauge where he stands. By getting the times and dates on their letter headed paper by definition they are in admission of the facts. Even if when normal service is resumed and the guy gets a verbal agreement they will replace the bike, I would still expect to have the written evidence in case there is some broken agreement later on ( hidden costs etc).
I have resolved two cases this way. One that did go to small claims, and then on to mediation the other for a new vehicle with a faulty clutch after only 5000 miles they accused my wife of burning out through misuse. I spent what amounted to weeks talking to them on the phone and in meetings, it was only when I started to gather evidence they could see I was in preparation to discuss with other parties they decided to sort the problem out under warranty and even gave me use of the dealer principles own wife's car because they didn't have one of the same spec' available other than hers.
Just passing on my own experiences, and how I would tackle this situation. Good luck, and a happy new year.
Nice one!
