Do I have a lemon? We purchased our 2005 Vovlo XC 90 new from the local dealership. We just hit 25K miles this week - we obviously don’t drive it a lot. So far we have had to replace the head gasket and replaced the transmission twice! We’ve also had to have the CD player replaced. Lucky for us, everything has been under warranty. But this is getting rediculious. From what I’ve read about the California Lemon Law I’m not sure we qualify. But I’d sure like some input if we have a lemon and should be trying to protect ourselves in some way. All thoughts and comments welcome.
To be honest, I’d think about trading it for something much more reliable. I wish I had a better answer, but if you do not you may end up with a real serious drain on your budget once the warranty runs out…
I can only advise that you do the worst, talk to a lawyer to get a real answer.
The dealership’s take on the whole situation is ‘there are really no such things as lemons anymore’. They argue since cars are made by machines/robots there is very little room for human error - i.e. little chance to wind up with something significantly different than the other cars coming off the line. Obviously with as many problems as we have there must be some explanation.
Thanks for your post.
Bull. 23 Years as a quality engineer and manager in the manufacturing industry qualifies me to say “Bull”. I’ll spare you the technical dissertation.
So what he’s really saying is that you should consider something other than a Volvo for your replacement 'cause they’ll all be like that?
One more thing if I remember correctly. Everything that has been replaced on you car has it own warranty which I beleive is one year from the date of instalation. Keep the paperwork.
The dealer has told you that all the Volvo XC 90s are really junk, just as mountainbike mentioned above. That alone says a lot.
You can probably find the California lemon law on the state’s website somewhere. I suggest you read it carefully and see if your car qualifies. If this were my car I’d sell or trade it before the warranty expires (if it hasn’t already), and I would not buy another Volvo.
The all-made-by-robots argument the dealer gave you (bogus, by the way) would tell you another new Volvo would be just like the one you have now.
There ARE lemons. That’s why there are lemon laws.
I think “Lemon Laws” are aimed at multiple failed attempts at the same condition,there is some qualifying conditions such as nimber of days (total) that the car has been out of service.
Is there a concern with the car that the Dealer has repeatedly tried to fix but could not
A headgasket,two transmissions,and a CD player does not a lemon make.
Valid point.
But at what point do consumers start questioning the quality of the product they purchase? One would think (hope?) a $58K car would be able to run more than 25,000 miles without such major repairs. While I feel fortunate that everything has been covered under warranty, I think at some point Volvo should assess their product if they value their customers.
Your experience looks to be similar to other '05 buyers, it’s rated ‘much worse than average’ by CR for the 6 (average for the v8). Not a good record for most years. So, while I doubt it qualified under any ‘lemon law’ (you haven’t described consistent unresolved problems) I would sell it. Note that price has nothing to do with reliability - Toyotas are more reliable than Mercedes, for example.
It’s unlikely you would qualify under a Lemon law.
The one thing that really stands out to me is this transmission replacement. You’re on the 3rd transmission in only 25k miles?
Since this sounds very suspect to me I know what I would do if the car were mine. I’d have someone (transmission shop, etc.) pull the serial numbers off of that transmission and verify that the transmission was ever even replaced.
It seems to me that since this is a very expensive warranty claim, and every car is budgeted a certain amount for warranty repairs, someone at corporate Volvo would have been looking closely at the original claim and looking very hard on a repeated expensive warrantable failure.
Just curious. When these transmissions were replaced did you get a written, signed copy of a repair order stating the transmission was replaced?
Here’s the law. See if you qualify. Contact the Office of the State Attorney General if you need additional explanation. Click on the ‘contact us’ link at the bottom for a toll-free phone number.