Car Lemon Laws

Your brand spanking new car is a lemon. Well at least you think it is. Every state has different regulations regarding what can be considered a lemon. However, there is a common theme across all of them. You should be able to make that determination of whether it is worth pursuing action (via the law or fire bombing the dealership … ok, please don’t do the latter, it was a joke).

A new car is a lemon if there have been multiple attempts to fix a given significant defect. A significant defect is one that adversely affects the car’s value, usage, or safety. It could be that turn signal doesn’t work (definitely a safety issue) or that the power windows sometimes randomly goes down (annoying and definitely affects the usage). That minor squeek that only you can hear when going 10+ mph over the 3 inch speed bump in the Wal-Mart next to the local mall while listening to Top 40 hits does not count. If that’s you, that probably just means that you are a car hypochondriac.