The car lawyer explains the Lemon Law

i look at the guy go i'm not leaving until you write broken timing belt broke while driving so i'm an attorney in michigan i've been practicing law for 30 years now um and i also taught law school for 10 years but my specialty is lemon law uh generally i often say consumer law but i like car cases and the lemon law is the law all 50 states have got one that covers and protects people who buy brand new cars now the law is pretty cool because it allows for certain remedies that were better than what there was before the lemon law existed but it's also got some very very technical nuances that you need to understand and of course i'm going to tell you right now if you've got a question about any of this you can usually find a lawyer in your state who handles lemon law claims and simply ask these questions it's the most common question i get at my office people call me say steve does my car qualify and i talk to people all day long just to see if they do not but the first thing to remember is that most states they cover new cars so you buy a used car most likely lemonade does not cover you it's possible with a very very late model low mileage used car but it's such an exception don't even think about it so a brand new car you bought a brand new car if the car's got a defect that cannot be repaired within a reasonable amount of time the manufacturer is either going to buy it back from you or trade you into one that's not defective the question is at what point does it become a lemon so most states measure that one of two ways the vehicle's in the shop four times or three times or some fixed number of times for the same problem and it's not fixed it becomes a lemon or if it spends 30 days in the shop or 25 days in a shop whatever your state might be at that point it's a lemon also if it's still defective after they've had it all that time most states do say that before you actually hit the drop dead limit you can send the last chance letter so in michigan although it's four repair attempts that it's not repaired after you can send the last chance repair after the third attempt has failed instead of 30 days at 25 days you can send in a last chance letter saying hey my car's not fixed i'm going to give you five more days to fix it so once you send the last chance letter and they don't fix it then it becomes a lemon now there's a couple things to remember and the first of all is that what we're talking about is a substantial defect i've had people call me up they spent fifty thousand dollars in a car and something squeaks they say it drives me crazy well most lemon laws say the problem's gonna be substantial and use the word substantial is both good and bad because it's a neat word but it's not definable what's substantial so many states say it's got to substantially affect the use or value of the vehicle so the interesting thing is some states don't even mention safety your vehicle could theoretically be unsafe although i guess an unsafe vehicle probably affects its use for value right so think of it this way if your car's got a problem that either makes it so you can't drive it or it somehow is very very inconvenient to drive or if you were to go to sell that car would somebody who test drives it goes oh what's that weird thing i want a discount for that if they're going to be able to with a straight face say they want a discount for that chances are it affects the value in an arm's length transaction so your engine blows up yeah that's a problem your transmission fails that's a problem car won't start that's a problem a car has wind noise at 80 miles an hour probably not a problem so what's a substantial defect is going to hinge on what type of car it is but the thing to remember nowadays is a lot of modern cars have gotten so complicated that a dealership doesn't always know how to fix them the first time i hear stories now about people say you know i've got this infotainment center in my car screens and touch screens and controls and i get in my car and it's supposed to come on and it comes on and it whacks out or it shuts off or doesn't work i take it to dealership they go oh that's weird and they play around a little bit and get not it's fixed a person gets in the car three days later dies again right it might not be something that the dealership can fix easily because nowadays cars have got computers and control modules and all kinds of electronic stuff and even things like transmissions which used to be fairly straightforward now you've got things like you know cvt transmissions dual clutch transmissions nine speed transmissions for whatever reason and some of these things actually are very very complex there are even problems that they've identified with some vehicles that simply cannot be fixed the ford dual clutch transmission there have been major articles in major newspapers about how they put this transmission on the road knowing it had problems but they were hoping they could kind of resolve the problems later and the cars still run they get from point a to point b but they shift harshly or they judder when they're in gear they have internal memos where these guys are actually saying like we shouldn't put this on the road yet and someone else is going we can't stop delivering these cars well we'll fix it later and so if you got one of those cars or any other car that's got a recurring problem that cannot be fixed you've got to start thinking about the lemon law so i advise anybody who buys a brand new car it's a big investment the average person biggest investment you're ever gonna make is gonna be your house second biggest investment most likely is gonna be a car so if it's that big of an investment spend wisely shop well and take care of it after the fact by doing the following things save all your paperwork from your purchase every document you signed you should save that most people do if you bring your car in for service to a dealership for anything under warranty repairs save the repair orders but it's also important that when you bring it in make sure they write it up as you describe it to them i've had people tell me that they bought a car they brought at the dealership and said the car died while driving down the road and they'll write down something like you know check engine a lot of lemon laws actually say that your car has to suffer from a defect or condition and a lawyer will tell you that the use of two words indicates that it's broader than defect or condition it's something else and so a defect might be a faulty transmission a condition is it shifts funny and your job as a consumer is not to diagnose or fix the car it's your job to tell them what's wrong with it so when you bring your car in and you say my car is doing this make sure they write it down i've had people tell me i tried and they fought with me i've actually brought my own car into a dealership i had a car that broke timing belts and i had occasions where i was driving down the road and timing belt broke and so the tachometer goes to zero cars still rolling i know what it is i put it in neutral pull the side of the road call the dealership it's under warranty they tow at the dealership and the guy wrote down he goes uh no crank no start i go dude that thing will crank all day long it won't start but it'll crank all day long guy goes no that's code that they know what this means i could you please put down broken timing belt it broke while driving the guy goes no no crank no start and i look at the guy go i'm not leaving until you write broken timing belt broke while driving now that vehicle had a observation hole you could look in and see where the timing belt was supposed to be wasn't there okay so it was a broken timing belt i come back in a few days later the guys yeah you're all done let me guess broken timing belt is yeah broken timing belt so you have to tell them and make sure they write it down then save the repair order and if the transaction goes smoothly and correctly you'll get a piece of paper when you drop the car off when you pick it up they'll give you another piece of paper the second one will show what was done to the car who did the work how long they had it and so on the first one simply shows what you complained of when you dropped it off the date you dropped it off these documents are extremely important because when someone calls my office says i have a lemon law claim i don't have to go look at their car i don't have to go talk to the dealership i go send me your documents i can put them on my desk and go okay repair one repair two repair three repair four i look at the dates it's a lemon law claim if it's not i look at how many days it was in the shop brought in this date picked up this day brought in this date picked up this day i add up the days it's math and so the documents are what drive these cases what prove these cases and make them very very easy and i mean i know guys who do you know personal injury law they have to get medical documents medical records x-rays it cost a fortune and it's all this paperwork that dig through and look at and have people review i look at the stuff go let's see here no start no start no start no start look at the days add it up and it's a lemon and that's how we do it so the important thing is if a car qualifies as a lemon you're entitled to the new car or the buyback and this is the important part your attorney fees and court costs will get paid by the manufacturer if you win so if you're calling around you think you've got a lemon law claim you find an attorney ask them have you handled them law claims how many how long you've been doing this they say they've handled them great and then you say are you going to charge me to take my case because most attorneys who do this will go no i'm going to get paid by ford gm chrysler bmw whoever it is they'll pay me i know those attorneys in a first name basis because i'm suing them all the time we're friends it's like you know sam and ralph you know checking in to work you know the sheepdog that's the point is that you get your training fees paid in the old days before the lemon law existed you might be able to sue the manufacturer and breach warranty claim for instance but if you didn't get your trinity fees paid it might not be worth it and so the idea that someone buys a thirty thousand fifty thousand eighty thousand dollar car whatever it is even though that person could probably afford an attorney it wouldn't be fair to make them hire one so a good attorney who handles these cases are gonna look at it and say look let me see your documents how well documented is is it documented well and if so i'll take the case and if we don't win i just don't get paid but if we do win i do get paid and that's how it works so most of the manufacturers are so used to the idea of the lemon law now that they understand it's the cost of doing business if you build a hundred thousand of anything some bad ones will get through and so if they build a lot of cars and a couple bad ones get through they know they gotta buy them back and they're gonna buy them back and they're gonna pay my attorney fees along the way so it works out for everybody but the key is to understand it only applies to brand new vehicles and there are some exceptions it's probably not going to apply to motorcycles in most states it's not going to apply to rvs in most states it's not going to apply to boats in most states and it's also not going to apply to commercial vehicles and so i've had people who bought big rigs commercial vans trucks they use for their businesses and so most people don't think about this until later but if you go to buy a car you're filling out the purchase agreement there's often a sectional say is this car being used for personal use or commercial use and they'll often be on the loan documents too and so if the commercial use is checked you might do that for tax purposes but understand that you're going to lose your lemon law coverage quite likely in many states so there's a lot of stuff in those documents that you got to go through and read but the purchase agreement the loan agreement and those kind of things hang on to those are extremely important premier financial services has been a sponsor of the vin wiki youtube channel for the last four years and we love them for that but we also love their simple lease it's one of the most powerful tools in the world of exotic car financing it allows you to minimize your payment minimize your down payment have the flexibility to move in and out of cars and take all of the advantages that are available to a leasing structure so check them out at the link in the description below we appreciate their continued support of venwiki and since you heard about them last year on the channel they were actually acquired by first financial bank usa and what does that mean for you it means they're now larger than any of 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Channel: VINwiki

Views: 141,241

Rating: 4.9710512 out of 5

Keywords: VINwiki, Lawyer, Steve Lehto, car stories, lemon law, buyback, lemon, defect, youtuber

Id: agri7Iama_o

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 02 2021