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Lemon Law Book » Chapter 7: Page 2
Chapter 7: The Gauntlet
What does this mean? In simple terms, it means that your automobile, motor home, boat, or motorcycle has defects that the dealer and manufacturer cannot-or do not want to-fix. So instead of fixing them, they will try to convince you that the vehicle doesn’t need to be fixed, or that you don’t want it fixed.
In other chapters we talk about the driving forces behind what eventually becomes your ordeal of lemon ownership: the corporate big picture. This chapter will lay out many of the actual deceptions and procedures that manufacturers and dealers employ, designed to make you give up and go away.
The Manufacturer Knows About the Problem
As you read about the gauntlet, fix this firmly in your mind: most of the time, the manufacturer and its dealerships know all about the defective condition in the vehicle. In all likelihood, the defect was manufactured into the vehicle through engineering error, poor quality parts, inadequate quality control, deficient manufacturing procedures, or simply the statistics of manufacturing millions of vehicles.1
The Gauntlet: What Did I Do to Deserve This?
The lemon gauntlet is not a theory; it is not a metaphor; it is very real.
Long before westerners arrived in the United States, Native Americans were required to run the gauntlet as a test of courage. It wasn’t easy. Two parallel lines of warriors were formed, and the warrior to be tested had to run between them. Each warrior in the line had a club. Every warrior took a shot. There was no holding back. Blood was spilled.
1. See chapter 5, 52, Complexity and Malfunctions: A Catch-22.