SolveYourProblem eLearning Series:
Got Shafted?
Fight Back if Your Car is a Lemon!
( 27 pages )

Filing Lemon Law Notices

The law always requires that you notify the company that you are claiming rights under lemon law protection against them. The fact that you have brought your car into the dealership on numerous occasions does not count as a legal notification. Generally, this is a real waste of time, but you still have to do it.

Your own state’s lemon law will spell out for you the way that you must notify the car manufacturer of your problems, such as sending them a letter that tells what the problem is and what you want them to do about it. In this case, it is probably best for them to buy the car back from you or replace it.

As with any important legal letter, you are definitely advised to send this through certified post a “return receipt requested”. This means that the party on the other end must sign for it and is proof that you sent the letter. Of course you have to be sure to save a copy of your letter.

The law usually always allows the other party to send a response to your claim. This of course will come to you in the form of a letter from the car manufacturer. What they will do is they will deny your claim every time. They will tell you that they have reviewed your claim and can’t actually do anything about it. This of course is the first lie that they will tell you.

What it really means is hat they haven't reviewed a thing. They have no idea who you are, what the problem is, or the circumstances of the case; perhaps more importantly they don’t care. They merely gave it a week to make you think they paid attention to you and then just plopped your name into a form letter that merely says no.

Car companies put out so many problem cars that if they honored every request under lemon law, they'd go broke in a matter of days. So their answer is to honor none of them unless they are forced to. They do know that if they deny every claim, probably 70-80% of cases will go away and they usually do. Car companies also know that if they string out the process as long as they can most of the rest of the cases will also go away because of these reasons:

1. Many people can’t or won't come up with the money they need to retain an attorney or will become scared of going to court and back out.

2. Some will decide that going through the lemon law process isn't worth it and just sell the car privately.

3. Something can happen to the car like you could move out of state or have an accident which can be used as the cause of all problems by the companies.

4. If they can delay it long enough for you to put thousands more miles on the car, it will be reduced because the car is older and has been used more. Consequently, if you put on another 30,000 miles and they settle with you for value that is 30,000 more miles then they don't have to pay for.

5. Most of the people that actually go the distance will settle for their attorney fees and a couple of thousand dollars.

Car companies are fully aware that time and money is on their side and if they wait it out, they can get rid of about 95% of lemon law cases without even getting close to the courthouse steps. They are depending on this.

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