In the Lemon Law, the concept of substantial impairment to the use, value or safety of your vehicle is one of the basic tests that determine the validity of a case. Obviously the consumer’s viewpoint of what is substantial and what the manufacturer considers substantial is very different. It is our business to ensure that when the consumer’s car engine dies on the freeway during rush hour it isn’t treated the same as a broken cup holder. In this engine dying on the freeway example all three criteria are substantially impaired. That’s an easy one.

It’s bad enough that your new car, motor home or boat loses 10% of its value immediately after you drive it away from the dealership. I want to put a number on this so you’ll really feel the pain. I know it’s mean; sorry about that. If you paid $50,000 dollars for your car it’s only worth $45,000 when you arrive home after you sign the contract. This being the case, anything that further impairs the value is going to get your attention big time.

            Let’s take a quick look at use. You buy a car to get from one place to another as efficiently as the roads and highways permit. The engine should have sufficient strength to get you up your driveway without stalling. All of the essential components of the vehicle must do what their supposed to do. All of the bells and whistles bell and whistle. You can look at the moon when its there to be seen—if the moon roof doesn’t get stuck halfway. You can navigate around the world if the software doesn’t drop a digit and tell you you’re in Kansas with Dorothy and Toto instead of downtown Pasadena—where you really are. To put a point on it, a car’s purpose is first to provide safe, reliable transportation. If you can’t use it to get from home to work and back it doesn’t qualify as useful.

            How about value? This is easy, although the manufacturers usually have a different yardstick. Who knew? You’ve had your new truck for a month and notice bubble spots appearing beneath the paint. They don’t have to be huge open flakes. You can see them and so can your friends and relatives. Maybe they are polite and don’t ask you why you don’t wash the truck. The basic fact is that if you decided you wanted to sell your new truck and buy something else, you’re going to take a serious hit on value. You ask for the Blue Book price and a potential buyer says, “Huh? Dude…what about these blotches in the paint?” What are you going to say? If you take it back to the dealer to be repainted, you know there is no way it is going to be like new. Acme Paint & Body, the dealership’s body shop hasn’t the tools, paints or environment to duplicate the paint job it was supposed to have received at the factory. You don’t want it. It’s not what you thought you were buying. It is substantially reduced in value.

            Now let’s look at safety. It seems as though it should be fairly cut and dried. It’s not. Few things in the law are as simple as they should be. There ought to be an adrenaline test. For example, if your vehicle through a failure to do something it was designed to do—like stop quickly in a straight line—puts you in a situation where your heart rate shoots up like a loan shark’s interest rate, that situation should be declared unsafe. Okay, that’s bit whimsical and the manufacturer’s defense might argue that you shouldn’t have been looking at the pretty girl on the street corner. (For the guys, of course) However, if you are on the freeway and traffic suddenly begins to slow, and you hit the brakes and your foot goes to the floor, this is impaired safety. The same could be said of constant SRS (Safety Restraint System) problems. When the warning light comes on and the folks at the dealership tell you nothing is wrong and all they do is reset the computer, and you take it back for the same problem over and over, do you quit believing the warning? I don’t think so.

            I am certain that everyone reading this article has had one or more of the categories described above. It’s one of the reasons why we are here. To the manufacturers there is no such thing as a problem that reduces the use, value or safety of a vehicle and they will keep asserting this even as you discover that your new truck is so underpowered it won’t tow your son’s Hot Wheels, and that the repair history (which the potential buyer insists on seeing) shows more visits to the dealer than people who bought the 7 series BMW. And of course safety: I suppose as you are extracted from your burning wreck by the “Jaws of Life” the manufacturer might admit that that little problem they have been having with the fuel system was at fault: Probably not. Remember the Ford Pinto?

            This is what we do. We help you sort out what is substantial impairment of the use, value and safety of your vehicle. To paraphrase an old stockbroker advertisement, when we talk, manufacturers listen. If you have questions about how to determine substantial impairment, give us a call at (818) 244-3905 or visit our website at www.normantaylor.com.

From our Guest Blogger, Sergei Lemberg, a New York Lemon Law Attorney

That new car smell is the best. The feeling of driving around in a new ride is sensational. But what happens when the experience sours and your new car starts smelling like a lemon? New York’s lemon law gives you the right to take action - and turn your lemon into lemonade. Sergei Lemberg, an attorney specializing in lemon law, offers and overview of our lemon law, and tips to make sure you can take advantage of your New York lemon law rights.

According to Sergei, New York Lemon Law covers new and used passenger vehicles, SUVs, vans, trucks, demonstrators, motor homes, and motorcycles. In order to be covered, though, the vehicle has to be used for personal (as opposed to business) purposes.

Not every new car is elegible for “lemon” status, however. In order to be considered a “lemon,” the defects have to affect the use, safety, or value of the vehicle. In other words, the need for a paint touch-up or a malfunctioning radio won’t cut it. In addition, the defects have to occur during the first two years from the date you take delivery of the vehicle or the first 18,000 miles on the odometer - whichever comes first. You also need to have taken the vehicle in for repair four times for the same problem or it has to have been out of service for 30 days for a combination of problems. But, even if the vehicle was repaired on the fifth attempt, it still qualifies as a lemon.

Sergei notes that there are two options for pursuing a lemon law claim: you can either go to court or go to arbitration. He’s quick to say, though, that manufacturers have teams of lawyers that do nothing but fight lemon law claims, and that you’ll only be on equal footing if you have a lemon attorney at your side. The good news is that, if your court claim is successful, the manufacturer has to pay your attorney’s fees. However, the law doesn’t provide for attorneys’ fees for arbitration. That being said, with the help of a lawyer, you can get a refund, replacement vehicle, or cash settlement without having to go through the entire lemon law process - and get your attorney’s fees covered in the process.

If you think you have a lemon, start keeping notes. Jot down every communication you have with the dealer or manufacturer, the times and dates you have problems with the vehicle, and the days that the vehicle is out of service, either because it’s in the shop or because it’s not in working condition. Remember to keep all of your work orders, other paperwork and any written correspondence. It’s also important to contact a lemon law attorney after the third repair attempt. He or she can help guide you through the final steps that will legally establish you vehicle as a lemon.

I’m sorry Mr. Service Writer person; that dog won’t hunt. Even people who don’t understand how cars work aren’t going to buy it when the service writer says they have misused Mercedes, BMW and an assortment of other manufacturer’s wonderful machines, and that’s why the check engine light is on, the transmission won’t shift out of first and the air suspension causes the vehicle to look like it was designed to go around mountains counterclockwise—only.

The service writer or technician—less often the technician—wants the owner to believe that he or she is too stupid to understand how to use a car. Dealerships actually want consumers to believe their cars are fine, and if they only knew something about cars, there never would have been a problem in the first place.

It’s all about delay. The stall…baffle the consumer with distractions to hide the fact the consumer has bought a piece of crap and the good fellows down at the dealership hasn’t a clue how to fix it. The reason they can’t fix it is because something is wrong with the design.

Telling the consumer, “we’ve checked your car against similar models and they all do the same thing” is such horse dirt! If one of those boneheads told me something like that, good manners go out the window. I’m sorry folks, I’ll tolerate my share of idiocy but here the crap stops! I am going to give him and an ear full. For example, a well-known American convertible; when the top was up and the vehicle was moving at speed with the windows open, boomed and thundered inside the driver’s area like the drum section of the Los Angeles Symphony.

Quite rightly, the owner complained. She said it was driving her crazy. They had the brass to say that they had compared hers to several other vehicles of the same year and model and that they all made that noise. She would just have to live with it.

If I find a herd of zebras in my back yard that has somehow gotten loose from the visiting circus up the street and the circus folks point out that every other house on the block also has a herd of zebras in their backyard, eating their wife’s roses, and that I’ll just have to get used to it, someone’s zebras are dinner.

If you have experienced the dealership blame game, tell us about it. It may not cure them from doing it again, but sometimes it’s a good thing to get it said. By the way, we talk about this abuse and many others in Mr. Taylor’s book on the Lemon Law. Have a look at www.lemonattorneys.com .

1.  You have the “right” to permit our dealer to “fix your head” instead of your car, so you never come back again. Read more »

The sample data for this study was taken from approximately 100 of our most recent Lemon Law case files. Many of these cases had multiple defects. The data is very recent (last few weeks)

Vehicles Sampled by Make

Mercedes =   23

GMC =            17

Nissan =         12

Chrysler =       9

Toyota =         8

Ford =             6

BMW =           4

Land Rover =             2

Fleetwood =   2

Honda =         2

Kia =   2

Porsche =      1

Suzuki =         1

Winnebago =             1

Aston Martin =           1

Saturn =          1

Defects by Type

 ! Surprises !

Here’s the big surprise, and it isn’t about the number of defects or a specific make.

It is the number of cases where the first attempt to get the vehicle repaired ended in the dealership denying that anything was wrong.

 50%: Read that as Fifty Percent of the cases sampled began their repair history as:

·                    No Problem Found

·                    Working as Designed

·                    Normal operation

 In a couple cases they asserted their faultlessness even though the vehicles had to be towed to the dealership for repairs.

What do you suppose is the likelihood, statistically or otherwise, that fifty percent No Problem Found is accidental or random? If you said accidental, I am offering a course in remedial statistics.

In the category of “what do you know about that?” Look at Mercedes. I thought they would be 3^rd or 4^th. Those folks at manufacturing plants in Stuttgart and Alabama, and a dozen other locations have got some work to do.

If readers have a specific statistic or group of statistics that you’d like to see here, or questions of any kind, your comments would be very welcome.

Among the many articles on the web site at www.normantaylor.com, there are several that look at the statistical nature of various aspects of the business.

I have tried really hard not to get angry with American automobile manufacturers. I know; we aren’t the only country that manufactures bad cars, trucks and SUVs. The thing is I am an American.

Yep, I am a card carrying, baseball rooting, Mom’s apple pie, Porterhouse steak, flag-waving American. I still believe that the Chicago Cubs can win the World Series. When the country does well, I do well. The economic survival of the United States is my survival. When the economy is hurt, I and every other citizen is hurt. I might as well say it, expose my naiveté. I care! Let the French and assorted, “I am so blasé and have seen it all, we are sooo bored” Europeans snicker meanly; what they think means zip diddely to me.

So American manufacturers, would you please stop making crap and do a better job? You folks have got to get out of that “It’s always been this way and it always will be”, rut. Last year Toyota surpassed GM in total vehicles manufactured. That’s not what hurts. Pay attention! Here’s what hurts.

Here is a statistic which heaps shame on American manufacturing in general and specifically on GMC. 15.7% of our Lemon Law cases were GMC in 2007. 3.3% of our Lemon Law cases were with Toyota vehicles in 2007, and they make more cars and trucks than GM!

Can American manufacturing build better products? Absolutely! Have we the will, the pride, the business sense? Sadly, the jury is out.

Next to a house, a car or truck is the largest purchase the average consumer will make in a lifetime.

That being true, every consumer should take time to know as much about their vehicle as possible: Not just how it works, or how to maintain it, the consumer needs to know the law as it pertains to their vehicle(s). This includes the Lemon Law, both state and federal. The California Lemon Law (in California, the Song Beverly Consumer Protection Act) would never have been created unless there was a serious need.

Considering the amount of misery doled out by manufacturers and dealers to car owners when their cars have persistent defects, it is astonishing that individuals continue to show loyalty to the brand. It is amazing that they keep trying to work with the dealership long after the dealership and manufacturer should have replaced their lemon vehicles without being compelled to do so.

In this Blog we want to talk about everything California Lemon Law related. Here is a short list of the possibilities:

• What defines a Lemon vehicle in California?
• What is a defect? And what is substantial (regards defects)?
• How does a Lemon get manufactured?
• Finding resources for help with your Lemon car, motor home, boat or motorcycle, such as NHTSA, Bureau or Automotive Repair and consumer watchdog groups.
• Arbitration: Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
• Lemon Laundering: Is it still going on in California? How does it affect your lemon vehicle?

The list goes on and on. Please feel free to suggest topics of interest to you, the reader.

There are so many aspects to the Lemon Law.  If you have been to our main website, http://www.normantaylor.com you may have read some of our articles on the subject.

We want to know about your concerns and questions.

You’re driving to work, trying to avoid total obliteration at the hands of a speed-crazed long-haul trucker, listening to your favorite talk show person filling your damaged psyche with the trollish behavior of assorted witless politicians; you’re having a reasonably normal morning commute. Ho, hum!

You see an orange light flashing on the instrument panel. The manufacturer has cleverly created the light in the shape of an automobile engine. This is useful if you are newly arrived from Waziristan or a graduate of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Decision time: Should you pull over and stop? Should you try to continue and drive to your dealer? Getting a tow truck is going to be a serious pain in the…back. The engine coughs and stumbles like a wounded duck. No choice now, it’s off to the dealership.

If this has happened to you, you know what comes next. “It’s diagnosis time.” Cue the sad, mysterious music. At the dealership, the technician hooks a device to your vehicle’s computer network that reads the contents of one or more of the computers that control all of the operations of your engine.

I will spare you the descriptions of some of the truly idiotic diagnoses, such as “you didn’t tighten the gas cap properly,” et.al. Such shenanigans may appear in another post. What happens is the technician asserts that the #2 ignition coil has failed. “How do you know that?” You ask. “Oh, well, my test device read the DTC (Dynamic Trouble Code) 2P4356. It was stored in the computer. We’ll replace the coil; everything will run fine.”

As your eyes glaze over in dumb admiration for this display of modern technology, you feel comforted to know that all that ’stuff’ shoe-horned into the space beneath the hood, isn’t so mysterious at all.

If, however, you know engine components and control systems, and you know software systems, your reaction might be a bit different. You say, “If there are approximately 500 to 1,500 components in that engine, and maybe 250,000 lines of software code controlling all aspects of the engine, maybe it’s the software!”

This really is the question, isn’t it? Without being a software expert, logic suggests that there is certainly as much chance that there was a problem in the software code as there is of the ignition coil being defective. If you look at the numbers, they suggest that there’s an even greater chance that something is wrong with the software.

After having reviewed over 6,000 California Lemon Law cases, experience bears out our assertions. One might wonder with these facts in mind, why do the dealerships keep throwing parts at the problem and ignore the software.

The next time you’re tooling down the highway and that ^%*%^^*% check engine light starts flashing, remember there’s a greater chance that something is wrong with the software than the hardware. Here’s the cheerful news. It’s easier to re-write code than it is to re-design a badly designed part. Here’s the not so cheerful news. It’s more expensive to re-write software than it is to re-design hardware. Sorry!

There ought to be enough ideas here to get some agreement and some disagreement. We would certainly like to hear both.

 was talking with a motor home client the other day. He said, “if you are going to purchase a motor home, you better be handy at fixing things.”

This bothered me for a couple reasons. My first thought was, if I spend two or three hundred thousand dollars for anything, I do not want to spend time fixing it. I want to enjoy it!

Go ahead, look through the promotional material for a Class A motor home. Search for the section where it says, if the walls begin to de-laminate here’s what you do to fix it. Guess what? You won’t find one word about what you have to do to fix your new motor home. It came with a warranty. The warranty says in essence if it isn’t exactly what was advertised, they will make it like new. The dealership will repair it.

In the real world repairs made at the dealership often leave the vehicle in worse shape than it was before they started work. Having reviewed hundreds of Lemon Motor Home, RV, and 5th Wheel Lemon law cases I have seen this over and over.

Years ago I thought it would be a nice to buy a motor home and go traveling with my wife. I’d still like to travel in a leisurely way but I probably won’t buy a motor home. I am not handy at all. It’s not the same when you buy a house. I’ll fix what I can and when I can’t I’ll hire someone to fix it.

When I review a common list of defects for a normal motor home maintenance visit it’s always at least two pages. Most of the defects can be fixed and if the dealership would just do this, most motor home owners would leave and get on with their travels, no harm, no foul.

That’s not how it is. There is this thing called service, or attitude as it is more commonly described in modern slang. If you wanted to be treated like a fool, have every problem that occurs blamed on you, treated like you cannot tie your shoes unassisted, never called back when promises are made to call, buy a motor home. If this were simply my opinion, I wouldn’t write it. Go to Google, enter RV poor quality as a search. You will get to read page after page of motor home quality horror stories. I am still optimist enough to believe someone out there has bought a good motor home, RV or 5th wheel.

Sometimes I think I understand why we tolerate and purchase such abysmal junk. Part of it is thinking nothing can be done about it. Have we become so disillusioned in the market place we are getting what we expect? I am of the opinion that the market place, that’s you and me, refusing to accept poor work or rotten service sets the standard. If we lower the bar and say, “oh well, that’s just the way it is,” we’ll get crapped on. If we snarl and take the manufacturers and dealers to task, insist on quality and proper customer service, we will get a better product.

I understand, folks get to the point of retirement don’t need any strife in their life. They have been there and done that. But letting a bad manufacturer or dealer take advantage of your good natures cannot be accepted. Like any other evil that is “tolerated” in can be come institutionalized, and that is a very bad thing. It’s like having no expectation of a politician other than venality and greed. We get what we permit.
I would like to hear from you, the people who own and use motor homes, see what you think. We used to make fine things. What happened to real quality?

The Latin phrase Caveat Emptor, or let the buyer beware, has accompanied the buying and selling of goods since at least the 1600s, and probably much earlier. Essentially it means if you buy something, you are on your own as to whether you got what you paid for.

The concept has probably been around since the first Neanderthal traded an axe head to his neighbor, although what passed for warranty law in those ancient times was probably a bit more direct. If the axe Oog the Neanderthal traded to his neighbor, Moog was substantially impaired in use, value, or safety, Moog probably visited the side of Ooog’s head with a large rock.

Early Warranty Enforcement

 This material was shamelessly borrowed from Norman Taylor’s seminal book on the Lemon Law, “Lemon law, The Standard Reference Guide”.

It’s important to make the point that despite an overwhelming desire to get a big rock and pay an instructional visit the dealership, recognize that that impulse will get you thrown in the pokey and give the idiots at the dealership a good laugh.

A word to the wise, read the warranty carefully when purchasing a new car or truck. If you are buying a used vehicle, we highly recommend that you avoid anything that says AS IS.

We’d be interested in hearing your comments regarding warranties and your experiences with them.