Know Your Rights


When it comes to your Lemon rights, they are generally are defined by each states individual law as well as the written warranty that can be found inside each vehicle owner's manual. These rights are usually higher than what the manufacturer or dealer will admit to when you buy your car, so it would help you to check your states particular laws before getting a car.

Most of these laws that you will come across will include the Lemon Law if it applies, breach of warranty, unfair trade practices (i.e. damages for failing to repair the vehicle properly) and buyer fraud damages if the car was purchased under deceptive practices by the dealer. Each individual case has different facts about them and because of this the recovery you may be entitled to will certainly vary quite a bit. In order for you to learn what your legal rights are for your specific case, you would serve yourself better to contact a lawyer.

Lawyers who deal with lemon laws act a lot like a detective in that these lawyers first task when they are retained is to reconstruct the entire history of your car, from the date of production to the time the case is opened. These lawyers will help you to determine:

whether the vehicle was damaged at the time of delivery;

if the financing paperwork can prove that there was an obvious fraud or deception committed against you;

whether repairs were attempted by the dealer beforehand to cover up any defects;

the time actually spent for each repair;

the amount of money that was paid by the manufacturer for warranty repairs;

whether that model has any known defects that the dealers knew about;

Whether there are any actual service file notes that will reveal any unresolved, undisclosed safety concerns and other inquiries.

How Cases are Handled

Basically, lawyers go through an extreme investigation in order to learn everything that they can about your car. Only by investigation can a lawyer know how the concerns, which are typically referred to as non-conformities, have affected the use, value or safety of your car. At least if they specialize.

When the investigation is absolutely finished, a lawyer will confront the manufacturer of the car, present a very thorough statement about your case and then they can demand a full recovery for you. If the manufacturer agrees with your position, and you are satisfied with the offer, the case can generally be resolved very quickly.

It is entirely your own choice as to whether or not to accept or reject any offer. If you choose not to accept the offers made, the case next moves on to litigation which happens by your lawyers filing a lawsuit on your behalf in court.

No matter what you may think, it is not your word against the dealers either. Though this is what the manufacturers want you to feel, it just isnt the case. Lawyers have the means to be able to obtain all documents, repair records, service bulletins and names of witnesses to prove the case in court.

Good lawyers frequently take advantage of the services of Master ASE certified mechanics and appraisers who are can be convinced to act as an impartial aid in understanding the nature of the non-conformities. If it is necessary, the things that they find are then used for purposes of testimony at trial to prove your case in the event it cannot be settled.

Lawyers can often prove a claim by using a large number of tools, so it is never your word against theirs. In this sense at least, you should feel at ease. You might be wondering how you can win a case when the repair records given to me by the dealer state that the problem was never found. Well good lawyers are ready for this too.

Manipulation and/or poor preparation of repair records is one of the biggest concerns these days in regards to lemon law cases. When a car is taken to a dealer for a warranty repair, what most people dont know is that several copies of the repair order are made within the service department, most of these the customer never sees, even if asked.

Each repair that is performed contains the following copies: customer; warranty payment; accounting and even a hard copy that shows all of the mechanics notes that were made for each repair. Most of the time these notes are not available to the customer; however, the customer copy will list a problem that is the most often complained about but the dealers actions might read could not duplicate customer concerns.

For that matter, its not entirely common for the hard copy to show you that the mechanic found the problem but has also been instructed not to try to do any repairs because no simple procedure can actually fix it.
When this happens, you, the customer gets left with the very wrong idea that the car is operating properly and will unknowingly drive it anyway; with a potentially dangerous defect.

You may be wondering why this is seen so often. It could be that a certain make or model in specific may suffer from a uniform problem such as a defective door latch which the manufacturer still hasnt corrected.

Since there isnt a factory authorized repair that was completed at the time, the dealer is told to either write could not duplicate or maybe vehicle operating as designed and next thing that you know the dealer sends you, the customer, home with repairs still needed, but not performed.

Another reason that always seems to pop up is time. This is particularly the dealers time. Many dealers simply dont have the resources anymore and the mechanics that they need are not around in order to properly diagnose and address a concern. Under warranty procedures that are utilized by manufacturers, which is a problem that goes undiagnosed by a mechanic, will not be paid.

Other times, the manufacturer may limit the amount of time used to diagnose the cars for repairs and in many other cases, having to use unskilled mechanics lack the knowledge to perform their function in an effective manner.

The bottom line here is that while repair records are always helpful to a case, they are not the only thing that will determine the outcome. If you feel you are not getting what you paid for in your car in regards to quality and reliability, then no amount of misrepresentations on a repair invoice should convince you of anything else.

Here is a list of some of the things that you need to pay attention to:

How the vehicle is represented by the dealer at the time of sale.

The repair history of the car and the repair orders that are not given to the customer.

Accurate statement of customer concern per each invoice.

Whether an effort of good faith was made to diagnose the problem already.

Whether the model has a history of problems or not.

Whether the customer was told the problem would disappear on its own.

Whether the dealer noted on any invoice that there was a problem that could not be repeated.

Whether the invoices make a reference to an accident that may have occurred before the sale and if so, whether the damage was mentioned.

If the dealer told any lies about a customer's legal rights and most importantly: Whether the customer got what he paid for.

When it comes to your individual case, the lawyer that you choose is very important and what they can do for you rests a great deal on what resources they have available to them and how much information they can gather on your behalf. If you think that you could use a lawyer to help you with your lemon case, there are many online resources that you can visit in order to find the right one.