A.B.C.'s of Warranty
Repairs (Always Be Consistent)
A.)
ALWAYS make sure you
bring your car to your factory authorized dealer as soon as
something seems, appears or is wrong. The California Lemon
Law has a clause that triggers the "mileage offset"
(usage charge) at the 1st time you present your
vehicle for the repeated, unresolved warranty non-conformity.
The longer you wait, the larger the deduction the manufacturer
gets.
B.)
BE absolutely sure that
when you present your vehicle to your authorized dealer for
warranty repairs, that you have a Repair Order written up with
the complaint in your words and
description, not the Service Advisors.
Don’t “tell” the Service Advisor about the problem without
him writing it up in your words! Sign and receive a
copy of the Repair Order before you leave. If you had a previous
visit for the same complaint but they "could not duplicate",
take the Service Advisor out for a test drive and duplicate
the concern for them, then have them write the Repair
Order, and also have them note
“verified customers complaint” or similar language on
the Repair Order itself before signing. If the problem is of a
intermittent nature, then have them write the words “this is
an intermittent problem” on the Repair Order along with the
complaint/symptom. An example of this would be: “customer
states that transmission will intermittently have a hard
down-shift”.
C.)
CONSISTENT.
With
the California Lemon Law looking for a "reasonable"
number of repeat repair attempts for the same problem(s) ,
keeping your description
of the problem consistent
on each repeat repair order is essential!. For example, If
your complaint is "engine stalls when coming to a
stop" then keep the wording the same on this and all
subsequent repair orders! The key here is to be consistent.
This will make any potential California Lemon Law action down
the road much clearer and more concise. |
