WPBN: For Californians who are unfortunate enough to purchase a new or used car that turns out to be a clunker, 2025 is looking to be a confusing year.
A new version of California’s “lemon law,” which has granted customers the ability to demand that automakers repair or replace defective vehicles they sell, will take effect on January 1st for buyers of damaged cars.
That is, unless legislators swiftly enact legislation allowing certain automakers to choose not to comply with the new regulations.
The misunderstanding is due to a statute that Governor Gavin Newsom reluctantly signed into law in late September after lobbyists secretly negotiated it and it was rushed through the Legislature in the final days of the session.
Despite the fact that the bill severely weakened consumer safeguards, Newsom stated that it was critical to address the issue of California’s courts becoming overloaded with lemon law applications.
However, Newsom said that he didn’t sign it until after lawmakers promised to submit legislation the next year that would make the modifications optional for automakers.
Legislation that lawmakers claim satisfies Newsom’s requests has already been submitted. The length of time it will take for the bill to pass both the Senate and the Assembly and receive Newsom’s signature is currently up in the air. Parts of the new lemon law go into force in April, while others go into effect on January 1.
Confusion was increased when the California Supreme Court decided that the state’s lemon legislation does not compel automakers to uphold a car’s warranty when it is resold as a used automobile, one month after Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1755, the new lemon bill.
A defective used automobile or truck must be replaced or repaired by the manufacturer if it was sold during the original new-vehicle warranty period, according to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the lemon law.
The court stated that state legislators are free to draft a new bill if Californians disagree with their interpretation of the statute.
“Those arguments are best directed to the Legislature, which remains free to amend the definition of ‘new motor vehicle’ to include used vehicles with a balance remaining on the manufacturer’s new car warranty,” the court noted in its opinion from October 31.
Rosemary Shahan of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety stated that next year’s car buyers will find it difficult to know what to do if they drive a lemon off the lot while the Legislature works things out.
“It’s going to be really confusing for consumers,” she stated.
California courts are plagued by lemon law cases
A car is considered a “lemon” under California’s lemon law if it has significant warranty flaws that the manufacturer is unable to resolve, despite repeated attempts. Only complaints pertaining to the new car warranty from the manufacturer are covered under the lemon law.
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The California Department of Consumer Affairs states that if a manufacturer or dealer fails to fix a significant warranty defect in a car after what the law defines as a “reasonable” number of attempts, the manufacturer is required to replace the vehicle or return the purchase price, whichever the customer prefers.
Disputes may be settled in court if a customer files a lawsuit or through arbitration. In order to handle the increasing backlog of lemon law cases in the state’s courts, judges, consumer lawyers, and U.S. manufacturers collaborated to create the new statute.
Last year, there were over 22,000 of these cases in California courts, up from about 15,000 in 2022. In Los Angeles County, lemon law cases currently make up over 10% of all civil filings.
In addition to establishing new procedural guidelines for the lawsuit process that will lessen the load on courts, supporters contend that the bill that Newsom signed will expedite the process of providing consumers with a functional car.
However, Shahan and other critics contend that the modifications will largely favor American automakers, who are targeted by the state’s lemon legislation the most frequently, at the expense of customers. The majority of foreign automakers were against the measure.
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The statistics on lemon law cases, according to Shahan, demonstrate why American automakers wanted the rule modified. In California, U.S. automakers face a disproportionately greater number of lemon law cases than their international competitors.
Additionally, the new regulations limit the duration of the lemon legislation to six years rather than the full duration of a car’s warranty, which can be longer, Shahan said.
Mariana Alvarado Rodriguez and other plaintiffs are currently feeling the pinch as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision that new car warranties do not cover the car once it is resold used.
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A 2018 GMC Sierra 1500 with 40,002 miles was bought for $25,000 from a Fresno County car dealer in 2021 by Alvarado Rodriguez, a seasonal farmworker in Tulare County, according to court documents.
The truck began experiencing mechanical issues almost immediately after she drove it off the lot, which she says should have been covered by the warranties. General Motors, the manufacturer of the vehicle, allegedly declined to respect them. “I kept making payments,” she clarified in Spanish. “Then … I finally decided to get an attorney and told the dealership, ‘That truck, it just doesn’t work.'”
A year later, a judge in Fresno County dismissed her complaint because the Fourth District Court of Appeal decided in a different case that warranties that would apply to new autos do not transfer to subsequent sales. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling.
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According to Alvarado Rodriguez, she will still be without dependable transportation when she goes back to work in the fruit-packing sheds this spring. Her words, “The process has been so long,” “It’s really, really affected me.”
Tom Umberg, a Democrat from Santa Ana, is one of the creators of the new lemon law revisions that will go into force the following year. In December, he co-wrote the new law to allay Newsom’s worries. The Supreme Court’s decision that affected used car warranty claims like Alvarado Rodriguez’s is not addressed at this time.
He stated that when lawmakers get back together after the holidays, they will probably discuss that matter as well.
