Kia Shuma II

I purchased the car new in March of 2003 and after a month needed to use the air conditioning. What a disaster, it killed the car completely and the dealer assures me that this is a characteristic of the car and not a fault. Trading standards and I are of a different opinion and are trying to get the car replaced. Basic fault is that when air con is switched on ( which comes on automatically if you wish to demist the screen) the thing takes so much power that the car becomes very sluggish and acts as if it has kangaroo juice in it. It has been back to the dealer 5 times and each time they say it has no faults, the latest ploy is to blame my "driving style", no car in my last 24 years has been affected though! As requested by a couple of people an edit is being added. The car in general is as good as I could expect given the low purchase price. It is fairly rapid getting to 60 in under ten seconds, ride is hard but I think this could be improved by changing the Hankook tyres for a better make. Looks Ok and the economy ranges between 25 around town and 37 on a run. Switch in air con though and it really struggles to get up hills and economy falls drastically to between 18 and 30 MPG. I measured the performance with and without aircon - without a 0-60 of 9.6 is achievable but with it on it rises to 13.2 seconds. In what I would decribe as normal driving conditions it jumps when you remove your foot from the accelerator and jumps again when you put your foot back on. The dealer assures me this is because it has no throttle cable but instead is electronic.