In doing some research to help a neighbor sell a car, I saw a listing for a similar car that was recalled by the manufacturer and declared a Lemon. It was recalled a second time as well. Yet now it is being sold via a used car dealer. Is that legal? No, I'm not buying the car. However, in the event I come across a "lemon" that interests me, I wonder how serious I should look at it.
Lemon law calls for any car in for repair three times of more for the same issue under warranty to be repurchased by the manufacturer. On occasion, a cunning customer figures out they're way way upside down in their purchase either by rolling piles of negative equity onto their shiny new purchase, or just by purchasing a highly depreciating model (yeah you Suzuki Forenza) and uses the Lemon Law as an escape hatch attempt. An unwitting service manager may not be on top of things enough to prevent a 3rd repair order to be opened for the same "mystery matter." Contacting the selling dealer service department could likely shed light on whether it was a legit buyback and whether the issue was ever fully corrected. If the Lemon Law tag was ten years ago and the car has been in use for a decade with no further issue, it's likely OK if bought at a discount, because that tag is staying with it forever just like a R title, etc.
Old lemons are my favorite cars. Look up the state in which it was originally sold, that will give you the law on what it takes to be declared a 'lemon'. In my state, lemons are bought back by the manufacturer if there has been at least 3 attempts for the same repair in a certain time period (1yr?) and the culmination of those failed attempts is the customer being without the vehicle for more than 90 days if I recall. My point is, it's SUPER easy to get something into lemon law territory if there's a weird/hard to diagnose problem or if a shop is so busy the techs realize there's no money to be made in chasing a strange vibration etc. I've seen vehicle's lemon'd for 'A/C not functioning properly, customer states it doesn't get cold enough' kinda garbage, when it reality it blows 44*F all day in the sun. I've seen them get lemon law'd for vibrations that couldn't be figured out that turned out to be a bad driveshaft. In my experience though it's someone who's very particular and insistent that their new car isn't 100% right and a dealer's inability to figure out something relatively simple.
I had a truck that was bought back under the Lemon law. It was returned to the selling dealer and they put it on the used car lot that they own and sold it. The purchaser received the title branded as a buy back vehicle and instantly returned it as it was not disclosed as being bought back. I received a letter from their attorney requesting information as the dealer was denying the claim. I sent him to the attorney that did the original buy back for me and it settled quickly.
There's a dealer local to me that gets Lemon Law buyback cars from their OEM. They've supposedly gone through some sort of refurbishment program at the factory. The only way I know this is a few of them have ended up at an indy shop I do business with for exactly the same problems they were bought back for. I don't think the indy shop has ever successfully fixed one. They tell the customer to take them back to the dealership at this point. Random/intermittent electrical issues are what they've told me about.
My Silverado is a lemon law vehicle. Was originally a California truck, traded in a couple of years later. The Second owner complained about the fuel pump tick, dealer put a fuel pump On it and nothing changed so it got bought back. I bought it from Donahoo Chevrolet a few months later at a deal and have had Zero issues with it after 75k miles. If I was in the market for a vehicle I wouldn’t avoid a lemon law vehicle without looking into the whys and how’s to start with.
Piggybacking on Danny's post. I just bought a new truck, and one of the trucks I found online was from California. It was lemon law vehicle however when I did a deeper dive, it had been serviced 4 times for a seat belt issue. That was it. The market was $60k+ and they we asking $51K. It had hardly any miles and was nicely loaded. If not for the cost of transport, I would have picked it up. Luckily I found another in Kentucky that was closer.
As stated it depends on why it was a lemon. I had a family friend who was well off and bought 2 new Cadillacs every other year. One time he got this car that was a true lemon. I mean this car was a total POS. So having a LOT of money he went to the dealer again and said sell it after a month. Dealer freaked and said you will lose a ton of money, he didn't care. Dealer said let me try to make this right (knowing repeat customer). Called GM and they brought it to the Proving Grounds (same town). Took that car completely apart and hand reassembled it. The thing was perfect and better than anything produced off the line that entire model. I drove it the thing was beyond excellent for that era. He was happy with the treatment but sold it 6 months later as he could not get the bad memory out of his head by his own accounting. That car would have been an AWESOME buy for anyone.
Or a turd!!!!! Tue last VW I owned was the new Touareg when they first came out, I think in 03. We called it the Turd Egg and traded that POS in and got mama the 05 Infiniti QX56. That Infiniti only went in for oil changes, tires, and brakes, it was a great car to over 100k miles and then we got rid of it. I don’t think I ever even changed the coolant, belts, or spark plugs. ‘‘Twas a great car.
My son's mother just bought a new Tiguan and it burnt through all it's oil in the first 6000 kms lol ! What a turd.
