Lemon Cars and the Lemon Law for New and Used Cars

The federal lemon law is the Magnusson-Moss Act, which has been passed to protect consumers from defective products including lemon cars. This law guarantees a car buying consumer that certain minimum requirements of warranties must be met, and provides for disclosure of warranties before purchase -- For any product which has a written warranty, if any part of the product (or the product itself) is considered to be defective, the warrantor must grant the consumer the choice of either a refund or a product replacement.

State Lemon Car Laws

Each state has it's own set of lemon law statutes. Not only are new vehicles covered under the lemon law, but also used cars cars and trucks in many cases. Most state lemon laws outline specific guidelines and defines specifically what the number of attempts to repair a defect to be significant and whether these attempts entitle the consumer to either a refund or a replacement should it be deemed a lemon car. Additionally, most statutes set up warranty rights to consumers to protect against lemon cars for a defined period of time (typically 1 to 2 years or 12,000 - 24,000 miles).