Buying a car of the brand that you've dreamed of for the last x years, months, days or minutes can be a pleasure, a real treat or a staple, and it is definitely a considerable financial investment especially if you've taken a car loan. But the purchase can become a sore, if the vehicle turns out to be a lemon. What's the remedy then?
First of all, you should contact your car dealer/ manufacturer and give them a chance to rectify the situation (some states require that), which means to repair it for christ's sake or to provide a decent replacement or money back. Under the warranty, all repairs are covered. If the warranty expires, you can still be eligible for these three options (choose any that you prefer), if you can present proof that the malfunction that prevented the car from driving properly was there during the period of warranty.
Be sure to keep all letters and repair reports. If you have all necessary documentation, you can turn to the arbitration without a lawyer just by filing a complaint. In some states, you don't need to hire an attorney when you go to the arbitration, but you can always use one.
It can take a load off you and rid of unnecessary headaches if you hire an attorney or a lawyer, specialists schooled in lemon laws, who are ready to efficiently protect your interests in court. How much do they charge? It depends on the scheme. There are two methods of fee-charging on lemon cases: fee-shifting and contingency fee.
Fee shifting is a scheme that works on an hourly basis. Some attorneys charge the manufacturer for the hours they spent on the case after the case is successfully settled or during the case hearing. Other law firms charge you upfront fees and then try to get it back from the manufacturer at the end of the process.
Contingency fee uses a different scheme. An attorney receives a percentage of the amount recovered by the manufacturer after the dispute is successfully resolved. You suffer no upfront fees; you pay nothing to the attorney if you win the case.
The contingency plan is rather advantageous for the customer, as it contains an incentive for attorneys to settle the case as fast as possible and skim as much cream off the manufacturer as possible. Fee shifting, on the contrary, has some pitfalls. As the attorney's services are paid on an hourly basis, why not spend more hours on the case, especially if the manufacturer seems reluctant to reimburse the purchase.
Lawyers will strongly recommend you using their services, when you go to court. They have got three reasons to convince you with. The first one: you don't know the law and have to have perseverance and put a serious effort into studying it thoroughly to bring off the case. The second: an unrepresented customer has less negotiating power and is likely to agree to little or nothing and the manufacturer knows this. So he will try to drag out the case, so you get tired of it and retreat. And the third one: attorneys claim that the settlement amounts they negotiate are significantly larger than those negotiated by unrepresented consumers.
It is up to you to choose whether you would like representation or not. But you can always seek advice with those, who cracked some nuts and squeezed some lemon makers.
