Some manufacturers have gotten smart at how to avoid Lemon Laws.
A few years back I had a problem with the dual mass flywheel in our 5 speed (manual) Hyundai Sonata. The springs between the two halves of the flywheel would dislodge and lift slightly on hard braking, causing the two halves to separate just enough so that the clutch would never fully disengage. Even with the clutch pedal fully depressed, the clutch remained slightly engaged. [1]
The only solution was to shut the engine off and restart. Then everything was fine till the next hard braking.
My first visit to the dealer:
They said “no problem found”, and told me I don’t know how to drive a standard.
My second visit to the dealer:
They replaced the dual mass flywheel. It worked fine for several years and then slowly began to happen again.
My third visit to the dealer:
They told me I needed to pay for a diagnosis, and if they found a problem, they would reimburse me. I thought this was great because the problem was so obvious. After and R&R of the transmission and clutch, they told me they didn’t find anything wrong and I had to pay them over $1200 for diagnosing it.
Given I had three repair attempts, I pursued the Lemon Law.
In the Lemon Law hearing when Hyundai and I were arguing our cases to the board, Hyundai stated the following:
The plaintiff did not meet the requirement for 3 repair attempts. He only has his first two. His third was a “customer pay” service.
The Lemon Law arbitration board agreed with Hyundai, and I was livid.
[1] A mechanic at the Hyundai dealer who did one of the “repair attempts” validated the dual mass flywheel issue. He said he was afraid of losing his job if his management saw him talking with me, and he gave me his home cell phone number to talk instead.
I then tried bringing Hyundai to small claims court. The regional technical rep, armed with corporate legal backing, kept insisting there was no problem and that I didn’t know how to drive a standard. (Judging by his age, I was replacing clutches and rebuilding transmissions long before he was born.)
The judge ruled in Hyundai’s favor - Hyundai had a technical expert and I didn’t.