Disputing fair wear and tear (revisited!)

RensterUK

Folks,

I recently posted about disputing a bill received from Mercedes re: repairs required to a car I had voluntarily terminated the PCP agreement on.

Well, I wrote to MB UK detailing my disputes / objections, and had a response over the weekend. As part of the response, they knocked off a couple of the cheaper items as a "gesture of good will", but more significantly, they accept that one of the more expensive items (a full respray of the front bumper, owing to a "poor repair") was not our liability, as they accepted the fact that we had not had the bumper repaired during our ownership of the car - ie it must have been done by the first owner of the car, and therefore wasnt our fault.

This to me seems an admission on their part that the car had not undergone a similar inspection prior to us buying the car - as surely the "poor repair" issue would have been flagged up had it done so.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to me that the dents that they want us to pay for (which to the untrained eye such as mine, cannot be seen) may well have been there all along?

My understanding is that they have to be able to prove that the dents weren't there when we took delivery of the car, in order to make us liable for them?

Don't get me wrong - there are a few items they've charged for that I accept I have to pay for - scratched wheel, and a couple of body scratches - the wheel I definitely did, and the body scratches I dont recall doing, but accept that they wouldnt have been there on collection. I'm not trying to avoid my bill altogether, but only want to pay for what I am definitely to blame for!

Thoughts?