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Car makers try hard to create products that will satisfy their customers. After all, they have a reputation to protect. The car business depends greatly on reputation.
However hard they might try, every now and then there will be one or two cars that mysteriously fail to work. If you have ever owned such a car, you'll know what this means. The vehicle develops problems all the time, and the same kind of problem repeats itself regardless of the number of repairs or service. You give the car company every opportunity to fix it, but still it doesn't work. The service people are becoming tired of you, and you're becoming disgusted with them. The warranty period begins to draw to a close and you begin to worry – how can you ever hope to maintain this car if you have to pay for its repairs? Indeed, it's more of a hindrance than a help. They told you it was a car, but they sold you a lemon. You feel like there ought to be a law against this.
Relax, there is a law against this. It's called the Lemon Law.
No, seriously. The automobile lemon law exists to protect US car owners against being sold or leased out a car that repeatedly fails to work, in spite of the company having received reasonable opportunity to fix it. Under this law, a lemon is the name of a defective car which, when purchased new or in a used condition, turns out to have numerous or severe defects that were not readily apparent to the buyer before the purchase. Any vehicle that suffers from these issues can be termed a 'lemon.'
There are many considerations, of course, before a car is accepted by a court of law as a lemon. There are certain records that you, as a car owner, need to keep, and certain procedures that you need to follow. Not all kinds of car problems are considered when judging whether it is a lemon or not. The court needs to be convinced that your problems with the car were indeed of the 'right' kind. Also, you won't get the benefit of the automobile lemon law unless you can prove to the court that you gave ample opportunity to the car company to fix the problems.
Under the automobile lemon law, if you can prove your car to be a lemon, the company will be obliged to compensate you for your difficulties, this usually translates to their replacing it with a new vehicle, or buying the lemon back from you.
A lemon might also be a used car that you bought from some individual and not a company. In that case the compensating authority will be decided by the state law where the car was purchased. State laws also differ regarding the details of establishing the 'lemon status' of a car in a court of law. In order to exercise your full rights as the owner of a lemon, you need to consult a specialist lawyer, in addition to studying the particular automobile lemon law of your state.