California lemon law cars

California Lemon Law Topics:

Find out if your
vehicle qualifies for
California lemon law:
This is a free service for
all California consumers.
(If your vehicle is a 2019 - 2025 and
under the manufacturer?s factory
warranty, or it recently expired.)

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Vehicle Make:

Vehicle Model:

Current Mileage:

# of Repair Visits:

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Consumers top-6 questions with answers.

In my 24 years of practicing lemon law, the most-often asked questions asked by consumers are:

“Should I write or call the manufacturer about my vehicle?” Answer: California has no requirement for the consumer to call or write the manufacturer about their defective/problematic vehicle.
“Is the dealer responsible for buying back my “lemon” vehicle?” Answer: The selling and/or servicing dealership has nothing to do with a lemon law claim, nor does it have any responsibility to buy back the vehicle. This responsibility falls on the car manufacturer.
“Am I required to go through Arbitration?” Answer: No. Consumers in California have no requirement to utilize the Arbitration process which, by the way, is funded by the automobile manufacturers, so it’s hardly “unbiased”.
“How many repair attempts for the same issue must I have to qualify?” Answer: Though the bare-minimum under the statute is 2 warranty repair attempts, the actual number of repair attempts will be established by these factors: miles on vehicle, nature of defect/problem, number of repair visits where actual repairs are done to the vehicle, establishment of level of substantial impairment of use or safety of the reported defect/problem. (other factors may apply to specific cases).
“I purchased my vehicle “AS-IS”. Do I have lemon law rights?” Answer: California’s lemon law is about vehicle warranty repairs. “AS-IS” means there is no warranty, and thus no lemon law applicability.
“I contacted the manufacturer, and they said my vehicle does not qualify for lemon law”. Is this true? Answer: Whether you received this answer by letter or by telephone, it does not mean you do not have a “lemon” or a lemon law case. This is the juncture when you, as the consumer, provides me with the repair history information on your vehicle so that I may make an assessment on the repair history towards potential lemon law case applicability. Remember – automobile manufacturers are always going to protect their position, which means they don’t want to buy back your vehicle unless forced to.