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How Does California Lemon Law Work

How Does California Lemon Law Work

How does California Lemon Law work? It is important to know how the California lemon law actually works. You may have heard about the California lemon laws for defective used cars, new cars, motorcycles, boats, appliances, electronics, and more.

How California lemon law works is by providing financial reimbursement to consumers who have a vehicle or other consumer good that has experienced problems or defects while under warranty or extended warranty. If unable to reasonably repair or replace the consumer good, the manufacturer may be required to reimburse the consumer.

In our many years of experience, we see a lot of repeating questions regarding the California lemon laws. People are curious and want to know these important things.

  1. First, even one repair visit to the certified dealership repair shop can be enough for a lemon law case in some situations if the repair took a super long time like 30 days or more.
  2. Second, we charge no upfront fees for our legal services, we only get paid when we win, and we get paid from the manufacturer of the vehicle in addition to the lemon law buyback that our client gets.
  3. Third, some cases are settled through litigation, but other cases may settle faster through pre-litigation settlements before a lawsuit is filed.

What Is The Lemon Law In California

How Does California Lemon Law Work

In this post we will be explaining the California lemon laws. We are a powerful, trusted, and experienced California law firm founded by top attorney Jimmy Hanaie, esq. Who is committed in turning lemons into lemonade.

Determining the calculation of a lemon law buyback value in the state of California is very important to anyone that has or is considering to start a lemon law claim or consumer rights claim lawsuit in California.

For determining the possible potential compensation level for a lemon car or lemon vehicle, we generally begin by looking at the money spent on the vehicle by you.

How much money did you pay for your downpayment, monthly lease payments or finance payments, and more. By thinking about all of the money you have paid so far you can get a good understanding of what a possible lemon law refund would look like.

However, each case has unique factors that play a role in making the determination for your lemon law buyback compensation during negotiations or litigation.

For example, negative equity that you may have had on your previous vehicle when you traded in the vehicle, the severity of your vehicle problems or defects, the reasonableness of the actions taken by the automobile dealership or auto manufacturer and more.

Lemon Law Lawyer California

How Does California Lemon Law Work

The lemon law test used to see if your car is a lemon, is one that questions the “reasonableness” of the dealership or manufacturers actions. Were the actions taken by them reasonable given the circumstances of the situation they were presented with?

Important things to think about a potential lemon law case are:

  1. The type of problem you were having with the vehicle, and
  2. What you said to them regarding the problems, and
  3. Whether they were able to detect or duplicate the problem that you were having.

First, sometimes you may have modified or altered the vehicle in some way and that may have led to the vehicle being defective. However, usually, you probably did not make modifications to the vehicle and the car is just having problems the way you received it. If the vehicle is simply having problems even though you did not make modifications and did not get in a car accident, you will likely have a stronger case in most situations.

By the way, it is not required to get in a car accident for lemon law to apply. If you got in a car accident due to the defective car causing a car accident, you may have an even better stronger legal case and be entitled to compensation for your personal injuries as well as compensation for your lemon law claim.

Lemon Law Attorney in California

How Does California Lemon Law Work

Second, speaking up in life is very important. In the same way, it is important that you spoke to the dealership in the right way when explaining your vehicle problems to them.

It is highly recommended that when you speak to the dealership you tell them about each and every problem you are experiencing with the car.

Do not leave out any problems that you are having with the vehicle. The dealership usually writes down your complaints in their internal notes and repair invoice documents. These repair invoices and repair receipts become extremely important for your lemon law legal claim.

During the evaluation of your lemon law case, a lemon law attorney in California will review these repair invoices to see what problems you have been having with the vehicle and what the dealership wrote down based on what you told the dealership and what they were able to do about the problems, issues, and concerns, you were experiencing. So this means that your communications with the dealership are super important.

We review your repair invoices for free to see if you might have a case based on California lemon laws.

California Warranty Law

How Does California Lemon Law Work

Third, we want to know what the dealership did about the problems you were having. Sometimes they may have been unable to find the problem but other times they may have fixed it or worked on it.

For example, you may have told them a problem and they might have not been able to experience the problem when testing your car. They might have been unable to duplicate the problem you were having. But if you had those problems they still matter and you should not lose confidence just because they were not able to see the same problem you had.

In other situations, they may have found the problem and actually began to work on the problem. When they begin to repair the vehicle, some of the most important factors that our law firm looks at include:

  • How many days did the repairs take and whether they were able to actually fix the problems permanently or if the problems came back another time. If your repairs took a large amount of days or if the problem repeated itself again, these are strong signals that you may a strong lemon law claim.
  • Generally, for the lemon law to apply, another factor or criteria element is that your vehicle must have been under factory warranty when your vehicle was having problems and you got the lemon law repairs. However, even if you had no warranty or your warranty was expired, you may have other options like auto fraud, breach of contract, or other possible lemon law options. So if you bought your vehicle “as is” it may be difficult for you to qualify for a valid lemon law claim based on California lemon laws.

California Lemon Law Buyback Procedure

How Does California Lemon Law Work

You may be looking into the California lemon laws for the first time or you may already be in the middle of a lemon law claim, either way we can provide you with a free consultation or free second opinion regarding your claim based on the California lemon laws.

A large part of the procedures has to do with:

  1. Obtaining and gathering your vehicle purchase agreement or car lease agreement, and
  2. Getting and evaluating your repair invoice documents.

We can help you gather these documents through fax, email, or meeting in person.

A lot of times we can visit your home or visit your office if you prefer as well or we can do everything over the phone electronically.

The vehicle contract and repair invoices give us a good understanding of the terms of your lease, trade in vehicle, vehicle problems, payment schedule, and more.

Please make sure to continue making all of your payments for your vehicle lease or finance or otherwise. Not making all of your payments on time can lead to you hurting your credit score.

However, if you continue making your payments on time, having a case based on California lemon laws usually does not hurt your credit score. So always continue making your lease payments, finance payments, registration payments, and other payments in full on time.

Attorney Fees California

Knowing that you need to continue making your payments, you may find some lemon law relief to also know that we only get paid when we win. If we do not win, we will not charge any money for our legal services. In addition, many times the automobile manufacturer is responsible for paying our lemon law attorney fees separate from the lemon law buyback refund that you get paid.

Besides our no win no fee policy, another benefit is that we can speed up the length of time lemon law takes and can many times help increase the lemon law compensation. We know how expensive a vehicle can be, and our number one goal for our clients is to always obtain the best possible settlement and outcome for them.

We promise, if we do not win, we will not charge any legal fees. So it is a true win-win situation.

California Auto Lemon Laws

Lemon laws vary by state and can apply to equipment, electric vehicles, goods, cars, motorcycles, and more. Programs from bbb and arbitration and the manufacturer itself can also be of benefit sometimes.

California auto lemon laws can result from many different types of automobile problems and automobile defects. For example:

  • Transmission problems
  • Engine problems
  • Acceleration problems
  • Shifting problems
  • Idling problems
  • Improper sounds and humming noises
  • Battery problems
  • Braking problems
  • and much more.

There are so many different lemon law defects that you may be experiencing.

Many different types of cars have problems too, there is no specific lists of car types or makes and models.

Whether you have a ford, nissan, chevy, gm, or any other vehicle you may potentially qualify for the lemon law.

California Automobile Lemon Laws

Another benefit of the lemon law for vehicles is that it generally allows the winner to get out of their lease or purchase agreement and return the vehicle back to the manufacturer so that you no longer need to drive that defective or dangerous vehicle.

You may be able to get out of that lease or purchase and get a new properly working vehicle with the new car smell. That’s the best way to turn your lemon into yummy lemonade.

If your vehicle is having problems, always start by talking to a lawyer. You may have heard about the lemon law presumption, but the lemon law presumption is not required for lemon law cases. What is the lemon law presumption?

  • There is a stronger presumption that your vehicle is a lemon if your vehicle was having problems before 18000 miles or 18 months whichever comes sooner. But dont worry, even if your vehicle problems began after that time limit, you can still have a strong lemon law case as long as the deadline time limit statute of limitations has not passed.

Please always speak to an attorney immediately. Its the best thing you can do to put yourself in a good position to win against the sometimes corrupt automobile manufacturers.

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