You're right, I should be asking for coolant. From now on all purchases from dealerships will be made with a credit card, just let them deal with it

I offered to take it to them and pour a jug of water in it and they'd see. Their reply was "no, it must be fitted to the car". Update... They are giving me a replacement. As they do a lot of business on car forums and I enquired about the part on a forum, I think they are just replacing it to keep "good face".

The out edges of the radiator are plastic, the top corner piece looks to be two pieces of plastic (glued together?), it's leaking out of the seam. I have pics, but I'm not yet allowed to post here due to my post count.

Hi, I bought a brand new OEM radiator from a BMW dealership to fit myself (I have a long list of reason why I don't allow dealerships to work on my cars). Upon fitting the radiator and filling it with coolant, it leaked. Now then, the dealership refuse to refund or exchange the item unless I get my car to them at expensive, which will be an expense as it can't be driven. They told me if I hadn't fitted the part already, returning it would be no problem - do they really thing I bought it to sit on shelves? There's no way I could have found out it was faulty unless I fitted it. Well I could have poured water into it, but I honestly thought BMW had some sort of quality control to save me this bother! Where do I stand legally? John. ps. They did exactly the same with a fuel pump I bought nearly 2 years ago, the fuel level sender on it didn't work. So in that case I was able to take the car to them - but I wasted an afternoon off work and they damaged the paintwork on my car by simply washing it - which then took THREE further visits to them to rectify.