sorry it became so long , thank you if you got to the end.

Hi every one , sorry to not introduce myself properly before asking for advice but as im sure youll understand im really stressed at the moment and im finding it hard to think of much else. On the 13th of this month we found a car we liked, it was at the Yate clean van and car centre ltd in yate/bristol. I did the usual and haggled on the price he stated " if i knock it down £445 then you wont get a warranty. I said ti was fine as my uncle is a mechanic ( he is but i dont see him , id used this phrase to avoid the hard sell on the warranty) he stated well thats ok then , i just dont want you coming back saying the cars blown up down the line because youve not brought a warranty. - i took this as him trying it on to get me to buy the warranty and as he laughed i laughed too. We paid our £500 deposit and i returned on the friday 15th to pay in full and take the car home. on the way home we found the gears were starting to stick and were really hard to use. we also could hear a really odd sound from the car , it sounded similar to that of a milk float being driven along a very electric sound. We were a little concerned but had thought we'd get it looked at after the weekend and just checked as i had dental surgery booked for the following day so would be unable to do anything then. On Sunday i decided to take it out for a drive and see what i could find with the car and i started it up put it into reverse which seemed to go in relatively easily ( i did need to pump the clutch a little ) but then when id finished going back and went to put it in to 1st gear it froze and locked and i was stuck , i tried everything even turning off the engine , it was stuck in reverse. my husband managed woth lots of fiddling to get it out of reverse and into 1st to get it on he drive i called the RAC out and they test drove it as well as they cold h got to the end of the road before it was locking up and he had lots of trouble selecting any gear. he wrote us a full report basically certifying the car as unroad worthy and a danger to drive. We contacted the seller ( the dealer) and he wasnt very helpfull he started harping on about " sold as is" i presume this is his version of sold as seen. I quoted the SOGA and said we wanted to arrange for him to do the repairs as per the act. he started getting all funny with us and said he would pay half but not all of it using things like " you haggled me down £500 and now you expect me to pay for a repair, its not on , you didnt want a warranty you took it as is. " I have spoken to consumer direct and they advised to write to the dealer and state what we want. as the dealer was so unreasonable and he statedtaling about " my mate can look at it and if you go halfs ill get it repaired" we dont trust him to get the work done at a proper garage where the work will be covered for any period of time. so we decided to opt for rejecting the car, after all we'd only driven it for just ove ran hour in total. we wrote to him detailing this , today he called in reply and we thought he was first of all agreeing to repair it at hiscost but then he called back stating we would be paying 50% again we stood our ground and said no , he then got quite nasty ad stated he is happy for us to take him to court , i asked why he wouldnt refund us , as he could do it easily and he said " no i dont want to " My friends a solicitor so is helping me draft the letters and says she will clear it with her boss to send an official letter on our behalf should it not be resolved soon . Is there anything else we can do? if it goes to the stage where we have to take him to the small claims court then how do we do this and does it take long? We belive now thathis omment of " if it blows up dont come to me" was because he knew something was wrong with it. but hes really a nasty peice of work and today stated he will drag it all as slow as he can and dont expect to resolve it soon . his final words were " ive been in business for over 20yrs i know people like you , take me to court i will drag it out as long as possible and i hope you loose every penny" has anyone else had a similar situation ? what else can we do , is going to the press and posting on every review site worth it? or is it best to hold off. i have no idea where to turn i cant afford a legal battle , we gave him every penny for he car and are now spending out on insurance for a car we cant drive Shelly baker xx