About C.A.R.S.

Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety is a national, award-winning non-profit auto safety and consumer advocacy organization. CARS works to save lives, prevent injuries, and protect consumers from auto-related fraud and abuse.

CARS has led numerous successful campaigns to enact landmark consumer protection laws that benefit millions of new and used car buyers across the U.S. and in California, the nation's largest auto market.

CARS gives former Marine Cpl. William Woods, a veteran of the war in Iraq, a safe, reliable used car so he can search for a job, and take his dog with him, after he was stuck without a car because an unscrupulous dealer sold him a used lemon that had been severely wrecked and was unsafe to drive.

The President of CARS is best-known for initiating California's auto lemon law, which became the model for similar laws enacted in all 50 states. State lemon laws made auto manufacturers improve the quality of their vehicles, invest in updated diagnostic equipment, hire more highly trained auto mechanics, and take other steps to avoid having to provide refunds for seriously defective autos. Lemon laws have also forced auto manufacturers to buy back hundreds of thousands of defective vehicles that they failed to repair under their new car warranties.

CARS succeed in gaining passage of first-in-the nation legislation to expand California's lemon law to cover military servicemembers and their families. Toyota and other auto manufacturers worked behind the scenes in an attempt to derail the law, but we won. CARS also won against the Chamber of Commerce in the battle to free California lemon owners from being silenced by manufacturers and forced to sign "gag" agreements as a condition of repurchasing their lemon cars. Before we won, it was much easier for unscrupulous auto manufacturers to engage in "lemon laundering," or illegally reselling lemon cars to subsequent car buyers --without fixing the defects or disclosing their lemon histories -- knowing the consumers who owned them first couldn't talk about their lemon's defects and their horrible experiences to anyone.

CARS has also spearheaded numerous protections for used car buyers, including improving protections against crooked dealers who sell rebuilt wrecks and flood cars that often are unsafe to drive and worth far less than the dealers charge consumers to buy them.

CARS President Rosemary Shahan testifies for the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Rental Car Safety Act before a key U. S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee. Representatives of the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers and the National Auto Dealers Association testified in opposition. The Act became law, despite their opposition. (Read more)

Since the early 1980s, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have repeatedly invited the President of CARS to testify on behalf of American consumers. She has testified regarding forced arbitration in auto contracts, predatory and discriminatory auto lending, salvage and flood vehicles and the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, and auto safety -- including rental car safety and air bags.
CARS' Congressional testimony

CARS Founder Rosemary Shahan with Richard Cordray, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The President of CARS was also invited by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to testify regarding discriminatory auto lending, along with other representatives from consumer organizations, civil rights groups, and the auto industry. The CFPB has cracked down against auto lenders who engaged in discriminatory lending, overcharging African American and Latino car buyers hidden fees that cost them billions of dollars. Those overcharges, known as dealer "markups," are basically kickbacks lenders give dealers in exchange for routing auto loans to them, so they can bundle them and sell them on Wall Street. The added charges were not based on the car buyers' creditworthiness, but on their race. The CFPB has forced discriminatory auto lenders to pay over $150 million in fines and refunds to car buyers who were cheated over their loans.

The Board of Directors of the Consumer Federation of California honors Board Member Dolores Huerta, Legendary Civil Rights Activist

The Founder of CARS, Rosemary Shahan, has been repeatedly re-elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the Consumer Federation of America. CFA is the nation's largest consumer organization, and is comprised of over 300 member organizations, with a combined membership of over 50 million people. For over 20 years, she has served as co-chair of CFA's Committee on Housing and Transportation, playing an important role in developing the consumer movement's policies on transportation issues. Shahan has also been repeatedly re-elected to serve as Vice-President of the Consumer Federation of California.
 

Steve Baumann IT Admin and Webmaster Keeping the gears turning, Steve enjoys helping to spread the word via the various websites we administer. A Marine veteran, Steve puts that dedication and discipline into his work.

Credit: NBC News Los Angeles - July 13, 2015

CARS has amassed a decades-long track record of generating widespread international news and award-winning news reports, including major reports in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, CNN, 20/20, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reader's Digest, Parade Magazine, National Public Radio, PBS, and Huffington Post. CARS' president is frequently contacted as a source by leading journalists and is widely quoted as an expert on cutting-edge auto safety, sales, and financing issues.

More CARS in the News