When to write a letter to the manufacturer on a lemon law car
You came to the conclusion that you bought a lemon car, and as required, you took the car back to the manufacturer for repairs, severally. There seems no progress in resolving the issue, and the manufacturer is not offering real or practical solutions. Assuming you have kept all your documents well, including the repair receipts from the manufacturer, you may wish to invoke your lemon law rights provided under your state’s lemon laws.
Before you do that, most laws provide that you must notify the manufacturer that you intend to do so. The purpose of writing a letter is to give the manufacturer an adequate notice of the claim. Writing of a letter to the manufacturer has been considered by some lemon law experts as burdensome and unnecessary, since the manufacturer ought to have been notified of the defect when the car was brought in for repairs.
The letter generally outlines the problems the consumer has had with the vehicle. Typically, the manufacturer would be asked to repurchase the vehicle because it happened to be a lemon. The letter will then be sent to the manufacturer using certified mail, return receipt requested, and the address to be used is the one appearing on the owners manual, in most cases at least.
So, it’s totally superfluous to call a customer care hotline for the purposes of giving notice, as a notice given that way is not provided for in many of the state’s laws. The letter is required for proper documentation of the case, and it would perhaps be difficult to document a phone call made to the manufacturer, who may insist of never receiving a phone call from the particular consumer.
The letter is usually sent to the manufacturer after the second repair attempt if the problem seems incurable or that the car has been in operational for 20-30 days (depending on the state you are in) simultaneously due to the same problem. For new cars, the time line for sending the letter must be before the car hits 18,000 miles on its odometer or, the car must have not be more than two years old since the day you took ownership, whichever comes first.
Among the content requirements would be including the manufacturer’s address and telephone contacts on the letter, as well as the consumers’. The letter basically informs the manufacturer that he is in violation of a particular legislation with regard to the sale of a particular product that the manufacturer sells, in this case being the motor vehicle. The exact law is normally cited, and this of course will depend on the state legislation.
For instance if you are in California, this would be the California’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. The particular warranties are also put down on the letter, and one should take note that the warranties are express warranties. The facts that are applicable to that particular case are also set out, like for instance, when the car was bought, and the dealer from which the car was bought.
The chronology of events is then given out, which might include the telephone calls, the repair attempts and so on. This outline is general and is not meant to be exhaustive.
References
- http://www.consumeraffairs.com/lemon_law/demand_letter.html
- http://www.fraudguides.com/lemon/new-jersey.asp
- http://www.consumer-action.org/english/articles/california_lemon_law_eng/