Lemon Law Beware The Secret Warranty
The 2009 Car Complaint Index has just been published, showing the ranking, by vehicle, of cars receiving the highest ratio of complaints to sales. Complaints are fielded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), results are published yearly and this year shows the Land Rover LR2, the Mitsubishi Lancer, the Pontiac Solstice, the Dodge Avenger and Subaru Impreza to be the top offenders.
Attention is sharply paid to vehicles with high complaint ratios for good reason: the percentage of defective vehicles, or lemons, is astoundingly high, especially from the U.S. Big Three automakers. To add insult to injury, when a defect is found in a vehicle, a manufacturer will do as much as possible to cover it up so that they are not plagued with demands for refunds or replacements.
There is, in fact, something called a secret warranty that can act as a deflection to consumers with valid lemon law complaints. A secret warranty is a strategy that manufacturers use to avoid a recall, explained California lemon law attorney Norman Taylor. Under a secret warranty, manufacturers will pay for repair of a particular defect in a particular kind of vehicle, even after the warranty has expired. They call them warranty adjustment policies or goodwill gestures. And even these have to be pried from the manufacturers by loudly complaining consumersonly the squeaky wheel actually gets the grease.
Taylor has witnessed such practice many times over the years. He has been a lemon law specialist since 1987, and he and his firm, Norman Taylor and Associates, have handled over 6,000 cases for consumers with a 98 percent success rate. He is one of the leading lemon law attorneys in southern California.
It comes as no surprise that manufacturers will resort to such tactics to avoid a recall. If the NHTSA discovers safety-related defects and orders a recall, the manufacturer must arrange to repair the defect at no charge or, if the manufacturer chooses, can replace or repurchase the vehicle or defective component. The manufacturer must also file a public report with detailed information on the recall, must notify all owners of affected vehicles, and take numerous other costly steps to right the wrong.
Because manufacturers can and do take every measure to avoid replacement or refund of defective vehicles, it behooves any consumer who believes he or she may have purchased a lemon to contact a qualified lemon law attorney right away.
About Norman Taylor & Associates
Norman Taylor and Associates have been assisting consumers since 1987. At Norman Taylor & Associates, the goal is to provide clients with the highest quality of legal representation if theyre one of the unfortunate residents of California whove had the misfortune of purchasing defective vehicles or goods and who have recourse under the Lemon Law. They represent consumers in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. With a twenty two year history of successful cases, Norman Taylor & Associates has established their reputation as a firm of consumer advocates that get the job done.