Do You Have a Laundered Lemon?
Car Manufacturers Are Putting “LAUNDERED LEMON CARS” Back on The Road!
What is a “Laundered Lemon”?
A Laundered Lemon is any vehicle that has been repurchased by the manufacturer and then resold to an unsuspecting consumer without disclosing all the defects or the vehicle’s history.
Your Right to Laundered Lemon Warnings
Kentucky law requires a car dealer to tell the truth – but you have to ask. Always ask where the car came from. Try to find out who the prior owner was. You can also check the car’s prior history at www.carfax.com or Autocheck.com Better yet, ask the dealer to say it in writing, “This car was not a lemon”.
How They Try to Get Around the Law
One method of bypassing the law is for manufacturers to call their repurchase of a vehicle a “goodwill” buy back, so they can claim that the vehicle was not really a lemon.
Another method is to ship the vehicle out of state where it can be sent to an auto auction and purchased by a car dealer. When it is finally sold to a consumer, the dealer will usually deny any knowledge of its lemon history, despite the availability of the complete warranty repair history.
Faking Disclosure
Occasionally, manufacturers and car dealers disclosure by identifying only one or two of the many complaints made by the previous owner of the lemon car. They may also place the disclosure document within a large stack of documents, then spread the stack out in a way that leaves the signature lines visible while the top half of the document is hidden by the stack itself. As a result, buyers may unknowingly sign a form acknowledging that the vehicle is a lemon, when in fact, they had no idea. Be careful!
Are You a Victim?
Because car manufacturers have found a number of ways to conceal the lemon history of repurchased vehicles, you may find yourself to be another unsuspecting victim of lemon laundering cars.
If you discover that you have unknowingly purchased a laundered lemon vehicle, seek legal counsel immediately.
Burdge Attorneys have effectively represented many clients in laundered lemon car cases, from Kia to Corvette, and regardless of their dodging method, manufacturers and dealers are being held accountable for the part they play in this lemon laundering game.
How Can You Avoid Buying Someone Else’s Lemon?
Check the car’s prior ownership history before you buy it. Ask the dealer where they got the vehicle or who owned it. If the dealer says they can’t tell you that information, be careful. There is no law that prevents a car dealer from telling the truth.
Write down the “Vehicle Identification Number” and do a free Internet title search on the AutoCheck Vehicle History Detector, which can turn up a Lemon Law Buyback in the title history. You can cross-check the results on CarFax, too.
What are Laundered Lemon Cars Worth?
Think you paid too much for what may be a laundered lemon? Check out NADA’s consumer guides to vehicle values, where you can get current valuations or older editions of theNADA book over the Internet. If it rolls, floats or flies, they know what it’s worth. You can figure it is worth about half of the normal value. Maybe even less.
How Many Lemons are Bought Back?
No one knows for sure, but in one lawsuit it was discovered that Chrysler alone bought back 45,000 Lemon Cars in about four years-and resold them all over the country for a total of $1 billion.
Who knows how many Ford, General Motors, and the importers have bought back . . . one thing is clear-reselling lemon cars is a big business.
But you don’t have to be the victim in their Lemon Laundering scheme!
