Don't Get Had By The Pennsylvania Lemon Law
If you’re interested in the Pennsylvania lemon law, it’s best to know what it says before you buy your car. The sooner you know what the details of Pennsylvania’s lemon law are, the better you’ll be able to protect yourself and avoid hassle and frustration. But regardless of where you are in the process, we’ve boiled down what the main points of the lemon law are, then included some advice on how to act if your car’s maker is giving you a hard time. We’re not attorneys, so please don’t mistake this for legal advice. But it should be helpful.
First of all, the Pennsylvania lemon law applies to all new or leased cars. It doesn’t cover used cars unless the dealer makes it very clear that the car is a lemon. Motorcycles, off-road vehicles and motor homes aren’t covered by this law.
Most cars that are covered by this law are only covered for the first year you own it or within 12,000 miles of use. As quickly as time moves, this makes it very important that you not delay with any problems or claims. If your warranty has expired, consider contacting an attorney to see what options you have.
If your car is covered, and you’re having problems, the first thing to do is see what your owners manual tells you to do. All manuals should have instructions about this. The first person you’ll usually contact is the dealer who you bought your car from or the manufacturer’s area representative. You can get this person’s name and phone number from the dealership or online.
You must either take your car to a dealership for repairs or—if a dealership is too far away for you to reasonably get your car to—you must given written notice to the manufacturer of the problem. They should arrange to have the car transported to an appropriate repair facility.
Every time a repair is made on your car, the dealer must give you an itemized statement of everything that was done. Make sure you get a copy of this, then keep it somewhere handy. This statement should include the date the repair was done and odometer reading. So much of getting satisfaction from your lemon law claim is being able to document the problems your car has had and what’s been done about them.
The general rule with Pennsylvania’s lemon law is if your car has been repaired four or more times for the same defect, the car’s a lemon.
Still have questions? Give you attorney general a call, at 1 800 441 2555, weekdays from 10 to 3. You can also go online; start at http://www.dot10.state.pa.us/pdotforms/fact_sheets/fs-lemon.pdf.
It’s possible that Pennsylvania’s lemon law won’t give you the satisfaction you feel you deserve. This is fast getting into need-a-lawyer territory, but let us just say that in a lot of the cases we’ve seen involving lemon laws, people have sued the manufacturer based on their state laws and two federal laws, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and the Uniform Commercial Code. Some people have sued under breach of contract or unfair marketing.
The main thing you can do to protect yourself is to document every problem your car has, when it had the problem, what you did and what the dealer and manufacturer did. The more records you have, the stronger a case you’ll generally have. The Pennsylvania lemon law give you some protection, but if it doesn’t satisfy you, you do have other options. Good luck.
