Lemon Law

Buying a new car is considered a safe and reliable investment for most people; after all, when one purchases a new American-made automobile, one expects it to run perfectly right off the lot. Most of the time, this is exactly what happens.

But sometimes a new car will develop a problem, despite every precaution taken. The owner of course takes it back to be fixed under warranty; but after a time perhaps the problem crops up again. The owner is now suspicious, both of ther manufacturer and the dealer, and decides to take a closer look at this expensive new purchase. Maybe they see that not everything about the auto is as new and perfect as they originally thought.

It is now months after the original purchase, and the car seems to be spending more time sitting in the dealer's garage than on the highway, either because of a particular problem that doesn't get repaired, or because of new problems that periodically turn up.

By this time it is obvious to the educated owner: they have bought themselves a lemon.

Each state has its own unique set of ‘lemon laws’, which give consumers the right to get their money back or a new replacement car if they buy a lemon. A car qualifies as a lemon if the same defect can’t be repaired in a certain number of attempts, and/or if the car has spent a certain amount of time in the workshop over a 12–24-month period while still under warranty. The problems must be due to a manufacturing fault rather than a design fault present in all models of a batch (which would be covered by a model recall) or a fault of the dealer.

Dealers and manufacturers will usually keep repairing problems under warranty, but repeated repairs mean the car’s unavailable and you have to find other ways of getting around. And eventually the warranty will run out, and you may still have to foot further repair bills — or decide to pass the problem on to an unsuspecting buyer…