Magnuson-Moss
Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is a
federal Law that protects the buyer of any product which
costs more than $25 and comes with an express written
warranty. This law applies to any product that you buy
that does not perform as it should.
The Magnuson-Moss Act is a federal law giving consumers
considerable rights in dealing with manufacturers and
car-dealers of lemon automobiles. This law guarantees a
car buyer that certain minimum requirements of
warranties must be met, and provides for disclosure of
warranties before purchase.
Regarding "lemon cars", this law greatly
affects the rights of car buyers. For any product which
has a written warranty, if any part of the product, or
the product itself is considered defective, the
warrantor must permit the buyer the choice of either a
refund or replacement of the product.
We have argued successfully to juries that the lemon
manufacturers and car-dealers should be given three (3)
attempts to fix the defect. Continued attempts to repair
beyond the initial three (3) should not be allowed. We
call this the "three strikes and you're out"
principle.
A consumer may pursue legal action in any court of
general jurisdiction in the United States to enforce his
rights under the Magnuson-Moss Act. Attorney's fees
based on actual time spent will be covered if the
consumer prevails.
Due to this particular condition, there is quite a bit
of financial pressure on the manufacturer to settle
consumer disputes before going to court, as this would
keep their expenses down.
UNIFORM
COMMERCIAL CODE
T.AR.R. -The Uniform Commercial Code or
UCC has been enacted in all 50 states and some of the
territories of the United States. It is the primary
source of law in all contracts dealing with the sale of
products. The “TARR” refers to Tender, Acceptance,
Rejection, Revocation and applies to different aspects
of the consumer's "relationship" with the
purchased goods.
TENDER-The tender provisions of the Uniform Commercial
Code contained in Section 2-601 provide that the buyer
is entitled to reject any goods that fail in any respect
to conform to the contract. Unfortunately, new cars are
often technically complex and their innermost workings
are beyond the understanding of the average new car
buyer. The buyer, therefore, does not know whether the
goods are non-conforming.
ACCEPTANCE-The new car buyer accepts the goods believing
and expecting that the manufacturer will repair any
problem he has with the goods under the warranty.
REJECTION-The new car buyer may discover a problem with
the vehicle within the first few miles of his purchase.
This would allow the new car buyer to reject the goods.
If the new car buyer discovers a defect in the car
within a reasonable time of inspecting the vehicle, he
may reject the vehicle. This period is not defined. On
the one hand, the buyer must be given a reasonable time
to inspect and that reasonable time to inspect will be
held as an acceptance of the vehicle. The courts will
decide this reasonable time to inspect based on the
knowledge and experience of the buyer, the difficulty in
discovering the defect, and the opportunity to discover
the defect.
REVOCATION- What happens when the consumer has used the
new car for a lengthy period of time? This is the
typical lemon car case. The UCC provides that a buyer
may revoke his acceptance of goods whose non-conformity
substantially impairs the value of the goods to him when
he has accepted the goods without discovery of a
non-conformity because it was difficult to discover or
if he was assured that non-conformities would be
repaired. Of course, the average new car buyer does not
learn of the non-conformity until hundreds of thousands
of miles later. And because quality is job one, and
manufacturers are competing on the basis of their
warranties, the consumer is always assured that any
non-conformities he does discover will be remedied.
This
section of Lemon Law information is written by T.
Michael Flinn, www.defect.com. |