Frequently Asked Questions

Under the California law, if your car has a defect covered under your manufacturer’s warranty that cannot be fixed or repaired after a reasonable number of repair attempts your vehicle may be a lemon.  A reasonable number of repair attempts is always up for interpretation, but it usually means at least two or more attempts.

It is possible that your vehicle may qualify for a repurchase under the California Lemon Law if it has been in the shop for at least 30 days on one visit. 

If you receive a buyback through settlement or trial, you would be entitled to receive from the manufacturer your down payment, payments to date, registration fee, out of pocket repair costs, towing or rental expenses, and any other incidental expenses directly attributed to the defect. The manufacturer is entitled to reduce your buyback recovery by way of a statutory mileage offset for the amount of miles you were able to drive the car before you brought it in first for repair. The manufacturer must also pay off the loan on the car and take possession of it to be able to brand its title as a “lemon”.

As lawyers, we cannot make any warranties, guarantees or predictions on how your case will go or how long it will take to resolve. However, typically these matters can resolve under 6 months. Some cases can resolve substantially quicker than that while others may take a couple years to resolve if the matter heads to trial.

There is nothing noted in California law that requires that you park the car until you have litigated your claim with the manufacturer. The reason for this is because many of us do not have the luxury of owning a second car to drive in the meantime.

Every manufacturer has lemon cars out on the road. The most common offenders we see are Chrysler, Ford, GM, Toyota, Tesla, Hyundai, Kia, among others.

In order for use to evaluate whether we can take on your claim we would like to see a copy of your purchase agreement or lease agreement, all your repair orders, and any and all communications or correspondence you have had with the dealership or the manufacturer. A brief narrative is always helpful but not necessary.

Absolutely! Assuming it qualifies under the law. A leased vehicle has the same lemon requirements as a purchased one. The recovery is structured different, however, since the vehicle is leased. You would be entitled to receive from the manufacturer your lease inception payment, payments to date, registration fee, out of pocket repair costs, towing or rental expenses, and any other incidental expenses directly attributed to the defect. The manufacturer is entitled to reduce your buyback recovery by way of a statutory mileage offset for the amount of miles you were able to drive the car before you brought it in first for repair. The manufacturer must also buy out the lease for the car from the lessor bank in order to brand its title as a “lemon”.

With our firm, you will not have to pay anything out of pocket to retain us. We anticipate that the manufacturer will pay your attorney’s fees and costs at the end of your case so we will advance all costs and fees. If you lose, you pay nothing to us and we lose our advanced costs and time investment in your matter.

We can handle all the Court appearances and hearings on your behalf, however, there may be a few times when your presence will be required. For instance, if the manufacturer chooses to take your deposition, if the matter goes to mediation, if the court orders a settlement conference between the parties, or if your matter goes to trial.

You should hire us because of our tenacious reputation, our honest client communications, our fast responses, and our undivided passion to help consumers.

Once we have reviewed your documents we will send you out a retainer agreement to sign. Once we have counter-signed the agreement we can get started on your lawsuit right away!