Lemon Law for California

Hurricane Katrina recently devastated the Gulf Coast region, leaving thousands of people without homes, jobs or food. Many of these people also lost their automobiles to flooding. Some cars had only minor damage; others were completely covered in New Orleans, where the waters were as deep as 22 feet in some parts of town.
Obviously, if your car has been sitting in twenty feet of water, you’re not going to just turn the key and drive away. Estimates of damaged cars run in the range of a half a million and it’s likely that some of these will be sold to unsuspecting buyers.
What can you do to avoid buying a water damaged vehicle?
One option is to check with Carfax, a company that will run a check on the cars vehicle identification number, or VIN. They can tell you if the car has been damaged or totaled as a result of flood damage. Some insurance companies are actually destroying or selling for scrap any cars they have paid off as a result of flood damage. This will prevent a number of such vehicles from reaching the secondary market.
Water damage can manifest itself in a number of ways. The obvious ones are rust and damaged carpet, but carpet can easily be replaced. You should be suspicious of an older car that appears to have new carpet. Other problems are not so easily noticed, such as damage to electronics in the dashboard or damage to the transmission or engine as a result of rising water. The Katrina floods were salt water; that makes the damage all the more severe as salt water is corrosive.
Your best option is to take the car to a qualified mechanic and ask them specifically to look for flood damage. It’s possible that some damage might elude even a mechanic’s eyes if he or she isn’t looking for it.
While you should check with Carfax for a VIN check, be aware that it is possible, due to quirks in the laws of various states, to “wash” a car title so that no mention of previously noted damage shows up. We hope that a universal database of car title information will eventually be created that is more or less tamperproof, but in the meantime, all buyers of used vehicles are at risk.
Keep in mind, too, that used cars do not qualify under the Lemon Law statutes of most states, so if you purchase a car that has been damaged by flooding from the Gulf Coast or elsewhere, you will have no legal recourse against the manufacturer. You will have legal recourse against the person who sold it to you, provided that you can demonstrate that they did so in bad faith. That may be hard to prove however.

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[ To Learn more our services and areas of practice, please visit our website at www.LemonLawIntel.com ] 

Buying an automobile is an expensive, time consuming, complicated process. Most people hate it because, unlike other commodities, the pricing of new cars is a bit suspicious. You can go to Wal-Mart for a television, and the price is right on the shelf. But if you go to a dealership and see a price on the car you’d like, you may or may not have to pay that price. And you may have to haggle with one or more salespeople, and put up with stories about how the sales manager “won’t approve” the price the salesperson just gave you.
And once you buy it and agree to spend the next five years paying for it, you worry about what might happen if something goes wrong. If you buy that TV from Wal-Mart, you can just take it back for a refund if something goes wrong. With the new car, you’re just stuck. That’s what brought about lemon laws in the 1980’s and all states now have some version of them. Those lemon laws are effective. But knowing you’re protected after you buy the car isn’t good enough, especially if you find, through lack of knowledge, that you ended up unprotected due to your own misinformation.
Here are a few common misconceptions about lemon laws and buying new vehicles in general.
Used cars are covered under auto lemon laws.
Not true. These laws are designed to cover new vehicles only. There are Federal laws that may cover used vehicles if they are still under warranty, particularly for certified used cars, but the lemon laws do not apply.
If you purchase a new car, you may return it within three days for a refund.
Generally not true. While some states have grace periods regarding contracts of certain types, these do not apply to new car purchases. As a rule, once you drive it off the lot, it’s yours. For this reason, you should test drive the very car you intend to buy if purchasing a new one and you should have a mechanic examine any used car you are thinking about buying. It’s better to be safe than sorry.The dealer must inform you if a used car has been in an accident.
If buying a used car, you should certainly inquire if the vehicle has been in an accident. Many states have strict regulation regarding the sale of used vehicles with frame damage, so you should always ask. And any reputable dealer will answer your questions honestly. There is nothing, however, that requires a dealer to voluntarily share that information with you. What you don’t know can hurt you, so be sure to ask.
If you have a warranty of any type, you are protected.
Not true. A warranty without service to back it up is worthless. A warranty is only a promise from someone to stand behind their product. If they fail to do so, refuse to do so, or simply go out of business, you are out of luck.
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[ To Learn more our services and areas of practice, please visit our website at www.LemonLawIntel.com ]