If they pass the bill and it becomes a law, business owners who have less than ten cars could now be considered consumers. Also the length of Lemon Law rights would extend to 24,000 miles or two years…whatever comes first.

The legislation is called the Dog Purchaser Protection Act.  If you think about it, some breeds are pretty expensive, so it only makes sense to think that puppy could be considered a lemon.

The lemon law legislation would create a licensing requirement for breeders who sell over 50 dogs a year.  Not only that but the puppy law would require the department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection establish rules for maintaining the puppy facilities.

This also creates a so-called Puppy Lemon Law, where the seller of any dog in Wisconsin is responsible to refund, replace or pay a dog’s vet bills if the puppy turns out to be a lemon and gets sick or dies within a limited time after its purchase.

You can read more of this puppy lemon law here.

Puppy Lemon Law Links:

• Lemon Laws by State
• Specific California Puppy Lemon Law

David J. Gorberg explains the Puppy Lemon Law

Read more…

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A consumer recently purchased a new car and already has made several trips to the dealer’s service department for repairs. After picking up the vehicle, the same problem occurs, or new ones arise. The dealership employees don’t seem to care. Will they give you a refund or a new car? (As if . . . .)

Consumers do have options: The quickest and least expensive is to a claim for arbitration under the Florida Motor Vehicle Warranty Enforcement Act, also known as the “lemon law.”

This affords consumers a refund of monies paid to date for the lemon (less depreciation) or a reasonably equivalent replacement of the vehicle. It must have been purchased new in Florida, and a claim must have been filed within 24 months after delivery.

This is the deal: Once you take a car in for repairs three times for the same defect or has had it in the shop for 30 nonconsecutive days for a variety of problems, a claim is in order. You must first go through the manufacturers’ own arbitration program (which, in my opinion, is rarely helpful). If you lose, you then are allowed to proceed through the state’s own program. In both, the key to winning is proving that the car has a substantial defect that impairs its safety, use or value.

Though the law is meant to be consumer-friendly, it can be quite complicated, especially in proving to an arbitration panel that a vehicle has a substantial defect. In addition, calculating a refund can be difficult without an understanding of how depreciation and trade-in values work. Despite that, the benefits outweigh a lengthy, costly trial.

What can be done to avoid buying a lemon?

Investigate the prospective car’s repair history in Consumer Reports and auto magazines, Internet chat groups and with trusted mechanics. Many new cars go through several model years before the manufacturer works out all the kinks.

If the vehicle’s a lemon, it may help to have a private mechanic inspect it to determine the problems. You should always obtain and read all repair orders and question the findings of the dealership’s mechanic. Often, the order will state that the car’s performing to manufacturer’s specifications despite the private mechanic’s observations. There’s even a trend for dealerships to deny warranty coverage and bill the consumer for costly repairs.

A Pittsylvania County couple won a significant victory for consumers under the state’s lemon law.  In the past, judges found the law didn’t apply to recreational vehicles.  But it does now.

Henry and Suzanne Reynolds work and play hard.  Travel is their reward.  They bought a brand new RV, and they paid $211,000 for it.  They purchased it two years ago, but they only used the Mandalay Motor Coach for 17 days.  It’s been in the shop the rest of that time.

The RV has so many problems, the Reynolds’ lost count of them.  But the couple wasn’t too concerned.  After all, Four Winds International’s promotional literature says it’s covered by “bumper to bumper” warranty.

If this had been a conventional car or truck, there would be no question: the state lemon law would require the company to give the couple a new RV, or give them their money back.  But Four Winds relied on case law that held RV’s are not really “motor vehicles.”

While Judge Jackson Kiser declared Virginia’s lemon law “perfectly ambiguous,” he decided a motor home does fit the definition of “passenger car.”  The judge ruled that it was the intent of the General Assembly to alleviate the hardship on consumers caused by the purchase of defective motor vehicles.  Most important, Judge Kiser ruled an RV is a motor vehicle.

While that’s a major victory for the consumer, the Reynolds are a long way from getting their money back, or a new RV.  Their complaint is set for trial in federal court next month.

Meanwhile, they’re stuck making a monthly payment of $1,400.

Watch the video here.

As reported from Earthtimes.org, A Missouri man says the Aston Martin Vanquish he paid more than a quarter of a million dollars for is a lemon. Gary Mathes of Sunset Hills has sued the British car manufacturer under Missouri’s Lemon Law, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

This is a $260,000 car and Mr. Mathes would like to sue under the Missouri lemon law to get his money back.

Mathes said that in the 11 months since he purchased the car last year he has made a dozen trips to the dealer to report problems with the engine, brakes, fuel system and electrical system, among other things.

Aston Martin is in no mood to even speak about the Missouri lemon law case because they claim so few of the cars are made that they could not be replaced as sometimes required by the Missouri lemon law.  We will just have to see what happens with this one.

According to David Gorberg, “We have seen both a substantial increase in daily activity and stay time at our site, and the number of people accessing our lemon law pages, requesting legal help, is up dramatically. This is the first of many enhancements we will be making to provide better and more enduring value for Pennsylvania and New Jersey consumers of defective cars seeking lemon law help.”

I’ve gotta say, nice work David…this new lemon law site redesign will help inform consumers before wasting the time of the lemon law attorneys.  Four Stars, Mr. Gorberg!

Lemon Law Website to the Rescue!

While all 50 states have lemon laws and there is an umbrella federal law covering owner rights in pursuing warranty complaints, there’s still a part of the process that gets little notice: What happens to those cars that are determined to be lemons?

It might be reasonable to assume that they are disassembled and crushed by the manufacturer, since they’ve already been determined to be unrepairable. But that isn’t what usually happens.

The cars are often resold to other buyers, who may not be aware that the car is a lemon.

Manufacturers say that when they buy back a lemon, they fix the problem before sending it to a dealer auction and that paperwork is done to identify the vehicle as a “lemon buyback,” much the way vehicles decaled total losses by insurance companies are supposed to be branded as “salvage.”

But fewer than half the states require that lemon buybacks be designated as such on their titles. And even when a car is labeled a lemon, that designation can conveniently be lost if a car is sold in a state other than the one where a lemon law case was pursued.

The New York Times, citing a study by Esperian Automotive of 1,000 Florida cars that were bought back as lemons, reported that more than half the vehicles were re-titled out of state and nearly all of them failed to have the buyback warning attached.

Because many states don’t have lemon law protection for used car buyers, those who unknowingly purchase a buyback vehicle may believe they are simply stuck with a bad car.

So how can consumers protect themselves?

Well-known services such as Carfax.com or Autocheck.com can offer some protection against unwittingly buying someone else’s lemon, but even those services sometimes miss a buyback car or are misled by the laundering of a car’s title.

One way to check on a car’s repair history is to take its vehicle identification number to a dealer that services that make and ask them to run it through their computer database.

Manufacturers keep a national record of a car’s warranty service history, which should reveal that a vehicle was serviced multiple times for the same problem and was ultimately bought back.

If you find that you’ve bought a vehicle that showed a clean title but in fact was a lemon law buyback, contact the dealer that sold you the vehicle as well as your state’s consumer fraud division.

Sometimes the selling dealer may not have known the vehicle was a buyback, sometimes there may be deliberate fraud. In either case, you may be entitled to compensation or a buyback of the vehicle.

Too bad there’s no assurance that even a twice-recycled lemon won’t pass into other, unsuspecting hands.

Provided by BankRate.com

1.  Mazda MPV
2. Kia Sportage
3. Ford Excursion
4. Ford Windstar
5. Mercury Cougar
6. Honda Passport <- shocker lemon law car
7. Honda S2000 <- Honda a lemon law car? I guess so!
8. Mitsubishi Eclipse
9. Isuzu Rodeo
10. Ford Explorer
11. Land Rover Range Rover
12. Audi A6
13. Hyundai Tiberon
14. Honda Odyssey <- Good old Honda, a great lemon law candidate
15. Lincoln LS
16. Jeep Grand Cherokee
17. Volkswagen Passat
18. Buick LeSabre
19. Suzuki Grand Vitara
20. Chevrolet Blazer

Quite a list of lemon law candidates.  Feel free to research more about these lemons at MyLemon.com