My Berkshire Land Rover challenge

Wonder if any of you can help.

I bought a 1999 Defender TD5 from Berkshire Land Rover last September and had the bodywork customised. When I finally got it (they said a week and it was over a month) it was obvious immediately there was an issue with it starting. It takes several "go's" and when it does kick in there is a excessive amount of smoke that comes out the exhaust.
They changed the glo plugs but still no joy, so I left it with them for further diagnosis. The courtesy car they gave us ran out of MOT 2 weeks later so was unusable, and after another week it started snowing heavily so we had to ask them to bring the Landy back as we live in the middle of nowhere. So 3 weeks and they hadn't done anything to fix it - said they were waiting for a "pipe" to be delivered and would be in touch.
Of course we didn't hear from them, so took it to another Landrover garage - they replaced the fuel pump and tried new injectors but still no luck - they suggested it needs a new engine (has 193,000 miles on the clock). So I wrote to BLR asking them to buy back the vehicle - heard nothing. I phoned them and eventually was told they would look at the vehicle and replace the engine if they felt it was necessary, but needed to wait for a courtesy car for me. This was 3 weeks ago.

Any ideas?

sorry, fell asleep halfway through

I think you know the answer

c.a.b. or solicitor to give them a shake ?

I would contact my local Trading Standards as it may be there have been other or similar complaints about the same business. If there has been a series of complaints they are investigating it suggests a 'rogue trader' if you are the first complaint it may be they have just got badly wrong in your case in which case you may want to work with them to resolve this.

Unfit for purpose. Demand your money back

introduce yourself in the aptly named "introduce yourself" section and help will be more forthcoming

read the crock of **** thread.

How long after you bought the car, did you ask for your money back?

Sale of Goods Act means you can demand a refund or repair within first six months after purchase and onus is on trader. After six months you need to prove the car was unfit for purpose which is much harder to do in a lot of cases.

This may sound like a stupid suggestion but pop it in to guy salmon and get them to run a diagnostics on it. Get them to do a full report and ask them what they suggest.
BLR are unfortunately not so good on the customer care so you would be savvy to get everything written down. And while guy salmon are a main dealers they had to do the same for me and were very helpful and did a written report that the garage I purchased from couldn't deny.

Many thanks all for your replies and suggestions.
Will let you know how I get on....