FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Couple Win $33,000 Under ‘Lemon Law’

A Fountain Valley couple won a $33,000 judgment against General Motors Corp. and a La Mirada dealership under the state’s “lemon law” when a jury agreed that GM failed repeatedly to repair their car.

Rafael and Maria Michel, who still have the Chevrolet S-10 Blazer they bought in 1989, say they will not buy a General Motors car again.

“This was a nightmare,” said Maria Michel, who works for the county welfare agency. “It has been two years with this. It was so bad, they did not want to talk to us or to settle, so I had to take them to court to get some justice.”

The Norwalk Superior Court jury last week awarded the Michels $11,000 in compensatory and $22,000 in civil penalties under the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, or “lemon law.” The law requires manufacturers to replace a car or pay for repairs and alternate transportation when a new car is in the shop for more than a “reasonable” amount of time.

Reasonable is defined as four times within the first year or 12,000 miles of ownership for any one problem that affects the use, value or safety of the car, said legal assistant Richard McKinley, of the Glendale law firm of Taylor & Hodges, who represented the Michels.

The law firm last year won what is believed to be the largest lemon law judgment in U.S. history on behalf of a Beverly Hills businessman whose BMW 750i turned out to be a lemon. That judgment was for $160,000.

Calls to GM corporate offices in Los Angeles and to attorney Doug Davis, who represented the car maker, were not returned Tuesday. Gateway Chevrolet, the La Mirada dealership where the Michels bought the Blazer, declined to comment.

The Michels claimed their $21,730 Blazer did not come equipped with air conditioning as promised by a salesman and that the engine did not have an oil dipstick or even a place to put it. They also complained that the paint job was defective.

“When we bought the car brand new, they told us that with buffing the bubbles would come out, but as soon as I took it to the carwash, the paint came off,” Maria Michel said.

The car was in the shop 182 days in the first 10 months the Michels owned it, Taylor said.

In the months the dealership had the car in for repairs, its seats were stolen and the couple had to wait for replacements, Michel said. And then they were charged for the rental car.

Maria Michel, a native of Peru, said she suspects that the dealer assumed that because she and her husband speak primarily in Spanish they would not complain about the service, write letters to GM officials or hire a lawyer.

“They thought that we were going to be quiet, that we would not fight, but I am not like that. It was a lot of headaches and a lot of time from work and a lot of people would not be able to do it and that’s not fair,” she said. “Since the beginning they wanted to get rid of that car. You could not imagine how they treated us.”