My Successful Lemon Law buyback

[M3 Mitch]

Originally Posted by yo vanilla

I wouldn't call the Toyota techs clueless, at least at this point. It can be very difficult to track down parasitic draws sometimes. When I worked at a BMW dealership 8 or so years ago we had a new 5 series with a draw. We had a very good tech on the case; it took him multiple attempts to track it down (the draw was in the instrument cluster of all places).

BTW the lemon law does vary state by state.

I guess I am just meaner than you are. Normal troubleshooting for this sort of thing would be to make some arrangement to measure amp draw from the battery, then pull each fuse in the fuse block in turn. When the amp draw drops, bingo, you are looking for something on that fuse as the culprit. Usually this leaves you with 3 to 5 items to check. Now of course this won't always find the problem, but if you go through all the fuses you know you are looking at something weird on an unfused circuit. You don't see the weird stuff that often...

If they had done the above procedure, which I knew about when I was a 15-year old kid eager to get my first car, they would have found the trunk light was staying on.

Maybe I can get set up as a reality show where people bring in cars, guys work on the problems, and the ones who fail miserably like these Toyota Dealership psuedo-mechanics did, I can fire 'em like The Donald does on The Apprentice...

[Toymeister]

Originally Posted by Ultrarunner

As a State Certified Lemon Law Arbitrator... I can not over emphasize the value of being prepared... the value of arbitration is being able to present your side of the problem without an attorney...

Simple, straight forward timeline documentation is all that is required in most cases...

It boils down to what is reasonable under the statute.... is the problem a defect and has the manufacturer had the opportunity to repair and failed...

After the hearing I walked out to my scooter, I had happened to park next to the arbitrator who I was hopping in his truck as I was getting my riding gear on, he said "You should run a class on how to present cases". I had the repair tickets of repair attempts that the dealer did not, pictures of the odometer and a map quest print out of the mileage from the dealer to my home. It was not a Perry Mason moment, just simply logical. Now COULD I get the battery charged and drove the car - you bet! And believe me riding a scooter in the rain for 3 months had me tempted. But if I had I would not have had a rock solid case.

And I had read the state lemon law going in. Now if the dealer had not told me it was my imagination after the second repair attempt I would not have been so pissed off and documented it this way. Are/were the techs slow or idiots - I don't think so. I do think they rely upon an uneducated consumer or even more likely they are under tremendous pressure to get things turned around as quickly as possible.

[Freezer41]

I've got a new Pontiac that is in for a new fuel pump at less than 2,000 miles. I hope this is an isolated incident.

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by Freezer41

I've got a new Pontiac that is in for a new fuel pump at less than 2,000 miles. I hope this is an isolated incident.

Could very well be... at least let's hope so.

Keep a record of all warranty issues should the need arise.

Remember... you new vehicle warranty is automatically extended by the number of days your without the use of your vehicle due to a repair covered by your new vehicle warranty...