A car is a major investment, second to a home, so it’s important to know how to buy a good one and how to keep yourself safe when buying one. Anyone can find themselves the victim of a lemon car, and it’s not a great situation to be in. Read on to see what you should do in case your family is sold a lemon car.
Check Your State’s Laws
The moment you suspect that you’ve been sold a lemon car, check your state’s lemon laws to see the procedures you need to follow. This is important because the specifics of these laws may differ state by state, and you want to be sure that you’re doing the right thing and that your issues will be covered adequately. It will be important to do this early on, so you know the next steps to take in as short of a time as possible. This should be easy to do as you simply need to perform an internet search. Don’t click on suspicious-looking links, though, as you may fall into the hands of a fraudster. Stay safe from internet crime, which involves using the internet to share fraudulent or false communications with consumers.
Report to The Dealership
Once you’ve verified that you were indeed sold a lemon car and deserve compensation, you should report to the dealership that sold you the lemon. Let them know and give them a chance to try fixing it. The law allows them to attempt to fix the problem at no cost to you. The car, however, should not be in their presence for more than a month, and they may not attempt to fix it more than four times. Document every single trip you make to the repair shop and keep records of how long they had it each time. If, after four attempts or the lapse of a month, the car is still not fixed, you should take the next steps.
Contact the Manufacturer
Get in touch with the manufacturer if the car is still not fixed after all of this so that you can start the buyback process. Write to them and attach the records and more evidence of all the failed attempts to fix your car, and request them to take the car and issue you with a refund. If it’s a relatively rare model, like the 1964 Mark II, of which just 538 were made, you may be sad to see it go, but it’s the only way to deal with a lemon car successfully. At this point, it’s a good idea to also get in touch with a lemon attorney so the process can be easier as well as more likely to go positively for you.
File a Lawsuit
Finally, as the very last resort, if you neither have a working car nor a refund, you need to file a lawsuit. It’s imperative for you to get a lawyer at this point so you can get the process moving. Since a qualified attorney will know all the laws surrounding lemon cars, they will have an easy time guiding you through the process for a successful outcome. They will let you know all your options, as sometimes, lemon laws aren’t the only state laws that can help you. They may also know a thing or two about cars, so they’re in a position to guide you in all your problems. For instance, they can tell you about power windows, the earliest of which resulted from technology that was developed for convertible vehicles before WWII.
Follow these steps if you take a lemon car home so you can get refunded and have a chance to buy a better car. Do your due diligence and avoid falling victim to crafty car sellers who may be in the business of taking innocent people’s money.