What you need to know about California's SUV lemon laws

Lemon laws in the state of California are the same for SUVs as they are for other automobiles. If an SUV needs to be repaired four or more times in an 18 month period, the consumer has the right to return the vehicle for a refund or replacement. These laws are similar to the laws of other states.

Lemon laws are for cars that repeatedly fail to live up to their warranties. Any piece of machinery can be deemed a “lemon,” but the laws in California only protect the purchasers of SUVs and other automobiles. Some states besides California do have lemon laws for other machines, but this does not look likely to happen in the state of California.

Federal protection under an act of Congress

All of the states in the U.S. have consumer protection under the federal lemon law, which was enacted in 1975. The law, deemed the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, was put into place because manufacturers of various goods, including automobiles, were not honoring their warranties. Many companies would make claims that specified long and comprehensive warranty coverage for their products, and subsequently fail to live up to these claims. These companies would usually deny warranty coverage based on a technicality. Consumers complained about this practice to their congressmen, who decided it was in the public interest to pass a law requiring companies to adhere to their stated warranty specifications.

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act was a watershed moment for consumer rights in America. It was a turning point in the fight for decent treatment of consumers in this country. The Act is still widely applied today, most famously to SUVs and other vehicles.

The Federal Trade Commission's power increased

One of the most important aspects of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act was that it gave the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, more power to enforce consumer rights laws. These include many laws that had been on the books previous to the Act, and which car manufacturers, amongst other companies, regularly violated. While the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act did not end consumer rights abuses, it certainly curtailed them.

Another benefit of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is that it caused manufacturers to create higher quality products. Now that the government could enforce laws that punished manufacturers, especially automobile manufacturers, for producing low quality products, the manufacturers had much greater incentive to make higher quality products. The reliability of SUVs and other automobiles has increased greatly in the last several decades.

Do companies have to provide warranties?

It is important to note that companies are not required to provide warranties on their products. Despite some exhortations to do so, the lawmakers decided this would be going too far. However, all manufacturers that do provide warranties are required to comply with the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Many products are expected by consumers to come with warranties and SUVs, cars, and trucks certainly fall into this category. This especially true of Californian consumers, who tend to be more discerning than the average American consumers.

While every state has its own lemon laws, they are administered under and based on the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. As such, the Act set forth a number of definitions that are inform the laws passed by the state of California, amongst other states. For example, a consumer is defined as an individual who buys goods for his own personal use. Someone who buys goods for resale is not included in this definition, and as such, is not included in the group of people protected by lemon laws.

Other definitions common to all lemon laws

A supplier is defined as an entity that makes a product available to a consumer. In the case of SUVs in the state of California, this entity is a car dealership. Depending on the terms of the manufacturer’s warranty, they are controlled by lemon laws to a large extent. While a manufacturer, or “warrantor,” provides the warranty, the dealership is often responsible for carrying out repairs to the manufacturer’s specifications. As the enforcement of these specifications is covered by both the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and the California lemon law, dealerships must live up to the warranties written by their manufacturers. While this was and is unpopular with the dealerships, it provides a great deal of help to consumers in need.

Written VS. implied warranties: the difference

There are two kinds of warranties: written warranties and implied warranties. The definition of a written warranty is rather self-explanatory. A written warranty is the specific guaranty provided by the manufacturer to repair, replace, or refund. This warranty must be in writing, as one might imagine.

An implied warranty is much more subjective. It refers to the expectations of a consumer who buys a warrantor product. For an implied warranty to be in place, the consumer’s expectations must have been changed intentionally by the manufacturer. While this may be difficult to prove, implied warranties often provide far greater coverage than the written warranties do.

What is a full warranty?

A full warranty is a warranty that meets certain conditions set forth by the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. These conditions are very stringent, and only a small percentage of warranties offered by manufacturers meet them. In fact, it is very rare for an automobile warranty to meet these criteria. A full warranty must provide free coverage and no limit on the coverage of implied warranties. It also must extend to all owners of a product, not merely the original buyer. A manufacturer must replace the product if it cannot be fixed. Finally, customers must not be required to undertake any tasks to ensure the warranty is honored. A manufacturer can only advertise their warranty as a "full" warranty if it meets these criteria completely.