Five changes in the handling of vehicle purchases
Under a new law regulating vehicle purchases, buyers could pay higher fees, but they’ll get more protection from purchasing lemons. Here are key provisions of the law, which went into effect July 1:
The documentation fee that car dealers can charge for each purchase or lease has risen to $80. Previously, the fees were capped at $55 for a purchase and $45 per lease.
Dealers are now required to run every used car they sell through a federal database — the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System — to determine whether it was ever totaled, salvaged, swamped in a flood or returned as a result of a lemon law complaint. Any car identified as such must then carry a red warning sticker on a dealer’s lot.
New car dealers must now register vehicles electronically with the Department of Motor Vehicles instead of with paper documents. This is expected to save taxpayers more than $9 million a year and help get license plates to car buyers more quickly. Used-car dealers are still allowed to submit paper documents.
Car dealers previously could charge a buyer a flat $29 to cover registration costs. The new law allows them to charge only actual costs, which a legislative analysis estimated as $18 to $20.
A car buyer is supposed to put license plates on a new vehicle as soon as they arrive. Until then, temporary papers supplied by the dealer can be used. But if the plates have not arrived 90 days after the date of the sale, the vehicle can no longer be operated until the plates are obtained and installed. Under the old law, it was six months.
