Sounds like Composimmonite bought the cheapest oldest and crummiest Axaim avalible, no wonder it gave grief! Is it fair to judge them all on the basis of such a basement level purchase? I have not owned an Axaim but im told the first rule with any of the three makes[microcar, axaim, Ligier] is dont buy the deisel, but the petrol version, I test drove a Microcar deisel and it was painfully slow, almost undrivable. I bought a Microcar Virgo five years ago and it has been a joy to own,its petrol obviously and the Lombardini engine is a superb and very robust power unit, very fast acceleration, too fast really for the brakes but the later models had a brake upgrade.Parts from microcar are horredously expensive but many items can be sourced elswhere, quite a few parts from Citreon are used etc. To be honest nothing has worn out on my car in the five years, I have had to replace things like brake pads and air/oil filters, its still running on its original drive belt. These cars are not for everyone, they have there design faults, the transmission for example is very crude, I paid just under 5K for mine five years ago and I guess its worth about 1K now and will probably level out not much short of this for years now. I think I have had me' money's worth!