CONSUMER ALERT for California auto and recreational vehicle lemon owners!! Don’t get stuck with a defective lemon car because you skipped this step.
Auto and RV manufacturers won major changes to California’s auto lemon law that make it harder for most owners of seriously defective “lemon” vehicles to get warranty repairs or a refund. The changes apply to lemon owners who purchase vehicles from:
General Motors, Ford, Fiat Chrysler / Stellantis (FCA), Hyundai, Infiniti, Isuzu, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, and other manufacturers who opted in to the new, anti-consumer version of the law.
The California Department of Consumer Affairs has posted a list of auto manufacturers who opted in to the new law. If the manufacturer of your car is on the list, your life as a consumer is now more complicated.
Before the changes to the law took effect, all you had to do was to take your faulty car to a manufacturer-authorized repair facility (usually one of their franchised dealerships) for repairs. The manufacturers were responsible for tracking the repairs and offering to “promptly” buy back vehicles that qualified as lemons. That makes sense, since the manufacturers are the ones that produce the defective vehicles. They also review and approve warranty repairs, including reimbursing their dealers for performing repairs. Plus they have their own attorneys, who should be familiar with the lemon law.
What has changed?
Now, most lemon owners are required to also notify the manufacturer directly, IN WRITING, in order to have the full protection of the lemon law. You must provide specific information, including:
- The vehicle owner’s name.
- The Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN, which must be “accurate.” You can find the VIN on a plate on the dashboard, and in the sales documents. It’s 17 numbers and letters. Take time to double-check that the VIN is correct.
- A “brief summary of the repair history and problems with the vehicle.” It’s not clear from the new law exactly what will do the job. We suggest that you provide a complete list of all the problems that you have experienced, and of each of the times you attempted to get the vehicle fixed.
- A demand that the manufacturer buy back the lemon, or provide a replacement vehicle. It’s not enough to tell the dealer or manufacturer “I don’t want this car anymore,” “I’m afraid to drive this car,” or “This car is a lemon.” You need to tell the manufacturer IN WRITING that you are demanding a buy back or replacement vehicle.
You must send this written message to one of two places:
By email: to the email address that the manufacturer of your defective vehicle has provided, which shows up on this list.
By snail mail: “by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, to the address provided by the manufacturer in the owner’s manual or warranty booklet.” The contact name and mailing address are also posted here, on the website for the California Department of Consumer Affairs.
When you send the written notice, you must still have possession of the vehicle, so don’t wait until you have traded it in to the dealership or sold it to someone else. You are also required to keep the car for at least 30 days from when the manufacturer has received the written notice.*
Plus you must inform the buyer IN WRITING about the problems you experienced with the car — even if it’s the dealer where you’ve been taking the car for repairs.**
Is calling the manufacturer’s toll-free number enough? NO!!
Even if you have called the manufacturer’s customer service number over and over again, and talked to agents of the manufacturer who say they have opened a case in your name, and they will get back to you, that is no longer enough to preserve all of the protections you need, under the lemon law.
If you don’t send a written notice that complies with the new law, the manufacturer can get away with refusing to fix your lemon or buy it back, without facing the civil penalty for willfully violating the lemon law. The possibility of having to pay a penalty is the #1 incentive for manufacturers to do the right thing when you have a lemon. Unless they face a significant penalty, they have little to lose by failing to fix your car or give you a refund.
Why do auto manufacturers want you to have to write directly to them, before you can benefit from the lemon law?
The reason the manufacturers desired a change in the law to require lemon owners to write to them directly was to make it super easy for them to screen out vehicle owners who haven’t taken that additional new step, and refuse to pay for warranty repairs to fix their cars — reducing their warranty costs.
Auto manufacturers know that most lemon owners will not be aware of the new requirement, or write to them and provide all of the required information, so they can get away with stonewalling and giving consumers the run-around, in hopes they will give up and trade in their defective cars at a huge loss.
Not surprisingly, the auto manufacturers who steered the lobbying effort to weaken California’s auto lemon law have the worst record of producing the most lemons, having to issue the most safety recalls, and having the highest warranty costs.
General Motors and Ford steered the battle to change the law.
In the first half of 2025, Ford had warranty costs of over $2.8 billion and GM had warranty costs of over $2.5 billion.
In 2025, Ford broke records for having to issue safety recalls, recalling nearly
13 million vehicles due to serious safety defects — more than the next 9 auto brands combined.
How did the auto manufacturers get CA legislators to vote for weakening the lemon law?
For decades, CARS succeeded in not only blocking anti-consumer changes to California’s auto lemon law, but in expanding the law to cover vehicles purchased for business use and to include protections for military servicemembers stationed in, or deployed from, California.
However, the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) sided with GM and Ford over the changes to the law, under threat of a ballot initiative that would have capped their attorneys’ fees — threatening their incomes.
The changes to the law were introduced using a sleazy tactic called a “gut-and-amend” — stripping out the contents of a bill on an unrelated topic, and inserting the unpopular provisions — just two weeks before the end of the legislative session, when the fate of hundreds of bills was being decided all at once. Many legislators complained about the unfair, rushed process and having to make a decision on such an important issue without the usual months-long scrutiny such a bill should get.
CARS worked night and day and fought back hard against the changes, which were also opposed by manufacturers such as Toyota (which produces relatively few lemons compared with GM and Ford), but most legislators caved in to GM, Ford, and the CAOC. Notable exceptions, who sided with consumers: Assemblymembers Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Dr. Jasmeet Bains, Jacquie Irwin, and Cottie Petrie-Norris, and Senators Marie Alvarado-Gil, Angelique Ashby, Susan Talamantes Eggman, and Roger Niello.
* Here’s the actual quotation from the GM-Ford-CAOC changes to the lemon law
(AB 1755):
California Code of Civil Procedure Section 871.24.
(a) At least 30 days prior to the commencement of an action seeking civil penalties under subdivision (c) of Section 1794 of the Civil Code, the consumer shall do all of the following:
(1) Notify the manufacturer of the consumer’s name, the accurate Vehicle Identification Number (”VIN”) of the motor vehicle, and a brief summary of the repair history and problems with the motor vehicle.
(2) Demand that the manufacturer repurchase or replace the motor vehicle.
(b) Minor deviations in the notice submitted pursuant to subdivision (a) shall not disqualify consumers from seeking civil penalties.
(c) At the time that notice submitted pursuant to subdivision (a) is sent, the consumer shall have possession of the motor vehicle.
(d) The notice required by subdivision (a) shall be in writing and shall be sent either by email to the email address prominently displayed on the manufacturer’s website for this purpose or by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, to the address provided by the manufacturer in the owner’s manual or warranty booklet. The notice information on the manufacturer’s website, owner’s manual, and warranty booklet shall be provided in both English and Spanish.
** Here’s the actual quotation from the opt-out bill,
SB 26, that requires auto lemon owners to inform the buyers IN WRITING about the problems with the vehicle and any legal action they may bring — even if the buyer is the dealer who has been attempting to repair the car, and is already familiar with its history.
(i) If a consumer sells their vehicle as authorized by subdivision (g), the consumer may not seek civil penalties under subdivision (c) of Section 1794 of the Civil Code unless the consumer provided to the prospective buyer or recipient of the vehicle, prior to the sale, written notice of the basis for the consumer’s request for restitution or replacement from the manufacturer and of any pending action described in subdivision (a) of Section 871.20.
