Response of Manufacturers or Dealers to a Lemon
You can not foresee if you are buying a lemon or not. But if unfortunately you have bought a lemon, the very first thing you should do is to get yourself fluent on your state’s lemon law. As each state has a different criterion for filing a lemon law complaint, the procedure differs from state to state. By being familiar with the lemon law of your state, you are far more prepared to file and face a lemon law complaint.
Notifying the Manufacturer or Dealer
After your familiarization with your state’s lemon laws, you should formally notify the manufacturer that your lemon law claim is according to the set lemon laws of your state. Each state’s laws elucidate a way to notify the dealer. You can send a letter along with a “return receipt requested”, explaining the problem and in what manner you want it to be fixed.
Varying Responses of Manufacturers and Dealers
Some dealers may offer you a refund or replacement. Whereas some manufacturers or dealers might send you a response denying that problem’s very existence, contrary to your claim. This means they have not reviewed your complaint. All they have done is, put your letter there on the desk without paying any heed to it, giving you an impression that they are trying to figure out a solution to your problem.
Usually, what the manufacturers do is, avoid lemon law claims, as these claimants can only be appeased with compensation. This means money and time. And if they start entertaining each lemon law claim, they’d go broke pretty quick. So as a result manufacturers and dealers do not honor any lemon law claim till they are forced to do it.
Why to Avoid Lemon Law Cases
Where the dealers or manufacturers are not very keen to compensate lemon law complainants, they are also not very eager to face lengthy courtroom procedures. Car companies always avoid going to the courtrooms as they are well-aware of the cost and time each lemon law case would devour.
Here are some other reasons why manufacturers would avoid going to the courtrooms:
- Facing a lemon law claim is a hassle involving money as well as time. The cost of a lemon law case depends upon the time spent on that case. Usually a company might easily spend $20,000 defending itself. With that much money at risk, defending a lemon law case is already very expensive, even if they win.
- The companies are also threatened of paying three times the damages that they owed. For instance, if the damages cost $25,000 the company can risk up to $75,000 due to jury’s decision plus lemon law attorney’s fees as well as claimant’s attorney’s fee.
- Car companies do not want to have to deal with the bad publicity which dealing with a lemon law case can earn them.