Sweeter Lemon Law
Motorists trying to get rid of a lemon confront a difficult task under California law. Manufacturers and dealers need not repurchase a problem auto until it’s been unsuccessfully repaired for the same defect four times, and state law offers no relief at all to small businesses. A bill sponsored by Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford) would strengthen the lemon law by reducing the threshold repair number to two and extending protection to small enterprises.
The legislation would reduce the number of unsafe cars on California highways and offer a huge relief to owners of new cars--or used cars still under the manufacturer’s warranty--that were built with problems. It has strong support among motorists, firefighters, nurses, senior citizens and small businesses and has been endorsed by the state attorney general. The existing lemon law was passed in 1982.
The bill, SB 1718, offers a reasonable solution to a problem that ranks among the top consumer headaches. This measure should be passed and signed into law.
A dozen states, including Texas, Virginia and Washington, have recognized the problem and tightened their lemon laws to require only one or two repair attempts before a repurchase is mandatory. Lemons from those states, through what one consumer advocate calls “lemon laundering,” find their way into dealerships in states with much more lenient laws, including California. Californians and some other consumers have no way of knowing whether a vehicle has been repurchased by the manufacturer because of defects.
Under Sher’s legislation, mom-and-pop operations--businesses with five or fewer vehicles registered in California--would receive protection not afforded under the present law. This would be particularly helpful in that three out of four California businesses have fewer than 10 employees.
The bill has cleared the Senate and is awaiting a do-or-die vote next Tuesday in the Assembly’s Consumer Protection Committee. There, the auto makers are lobbying for an amendment to require the owner of a car about to be labeled a lemon to notify the manufacturer, which would have another chance to tinker with it. This is clearly just another unnecessary hoop for the consumer to jump through. The car companies, which reimburse dealers for warranty work, have plenty of notice from the dealers that one of their cars is a dud. The extra step would only delay getting the car off the road.
Support by Assemblymen Herb Wesson (Culver City) and Lou Correa (Anaheim), the swing Democrats on the committee, will be crucial to the bill in Tuesday’s vote.
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To Take Action: Wesson, (916) 319-2047 or e-mail herb.wesson@asm.ca.gov; Correa, (916) 319-2069 or e-mail lou.correa@asm.ca.gov
