Problem with maltese Autodealr

Hello everyone!

Me and my girlfriend have recently contacted an autodealer to buy a second hand car (uk import with original price of 1800 euros). The deal for us was 1000 euros deposit plus 4000 on the delivery. In the paper we signed it was specified that the autodealer "holds responsibility over the well functioning of the car". Once the car arrived in Malta we took it to our mechanic who immediatly noticed some problems and in particular he noticed a weird sound coming from the engine which eventually he said it would most probably settle after a little while. So we decided to keep the car a couple of days more to try it out before actually paying the full amount, and the autodealer was ok with it. After the two days it was clear that the noise wouldn't go and afer a second check from the mechanic we were advised not to buy the car. At this moment, given the engine problem, and other smaller problems like: the aerial wrapped in tape, the remote wrapped in tape, the lighter not working and something else I cant remember, we asked the autodealer to please give us the deposit back because we didn't want the car in those conditions (none of the above problems were even slightly mentioned by the dealer or in the papers). As you would imagine already the autodealer refused to give us the money back insisting on the fact that these are the risks of buying a second hand car, and instead he offered to fix all the problems giving us a guarantee of one/two years. Now we simply dont want to buy a car with a lot of problems already (i mean, who would?), and even though he is promising to fix everything we just dont care, we want to buy a car in good condition from the start!

Anyway now question is: does anyone know if we have the right to get our money back? Or he can just keep the money like that? Is this how it works in MAlta? Autodealers import cars from abroad, and they get to keep the deposit in case the customer eventually doesnt want the car?

We called the consumer office and we also asked around but nobody really gave us a real answer.

Please help, thanks!