I bought a VAX carpet cleaner from ARGOS to use at my mother's house. She has dementia and is incontinent. I had many problems with it but the main one was burning out its rubber drive belts. I went through 3 belts and the resulting damaged carpet before asking VAX for a replacement. They compensated me £50 for the damaged carpet, sent a replacement roller and eventually replaced the entire machine just before the warranty expired. To my amazement, the new machine promptly burnt out another 3 rubber drive belts. At this point, I decided that there must be a design fault. In any case, the machine was not reliable. During most of this period I relied on a my own Bex Bissell cleaner, which is a similar price to the VAX and has worked faultlessly for 20 times the use I had from the VAX machines. I contacted ARGOS and requested a refund of the VAX purchase price and the price of the 4 replacement drive belts. They said they needed an independent report to show there was a fault with the machine. I asked them where I could obtain such a report. They suggested the high street. I could not find anywhere that would make a report on a carpet cleaner. TVs, fridge-freezers, no problem though. ARGOS then suggested I get an independent report from VAX! I have now started an online small claims, using mediation. The ARGOS solicitor is relying on the lack of an independent report. I explained that I could not find anyone to provide a report but also that no company is going to state that there is a design fault. How could they know? I have photos, emails, transcripts of online chats and presumably ARGOS have recordings of their inept telephone calls (though they have not given them to me). Any ideas?