Tundra Owners Obtain Lemon Law Judgement Against Toyota
Tim Esterdahl | Mar 15, 2012 | Comments 12
On March 14, 2012, a Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled in favor of the owners of a 2007 Toyota Tundra under the California Lemon Law resulting in the Toyota Motor Sales Company to refund all payments the owners made on the truck.
A recent lawsuit ended with a California Toyota Tundra Owner receiving a Lemon Law judgement against Toyota. Was Toyota really at fault?
“For a significant duration of the Srokas’ ownership, the vehicle would shift violently at unpredictable times,” said Maxwell. “Dealership personnel failed to properly address the transmission defect, because it could not be duplicated on the very short test drives performed by Toyota’s dealers,” Attorney Adam C. Maxwell added.
The Srokas notified Toyota that they intended to make a California Lemon Law Claim after what they said was a reasonable opportunity to repair the vehicle. They stopped making payments and went to court.
A Los Angeles County jury determined that Toyota had violated the California Lemon Law and that the Srokas were entitled to a full refund of the payments they had made.
“It’s an important victory for consumers whose defective vehicles are not given adequate attention,” Maxwell said.
An interesting part of this case is the use of “short-test drives” that the dealerships used to try an determine the problem. It seems that it might have been cheaper for Toyota to spend more time/effort in trying to diagnose the problem rather than having to give a full refund. What is a few more gallons of gas and time spent on longer test drives versus 5+ years of auto payments?
Have you had problems with dealerships like this? Do you think the dealership was reasonable in trying to diagnose the problem? Do you think the owners took the right steps? If you were on the jury, how would you have ruled?
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Filed Under: Auto News
Unfortunately, this was totally a dealer problem and now Toyota has a black eye. I wish Toyota would ditch this dealer. I heard somewhere that dealers have a limit to the number of warranty claims they can make. I wonder if this rumor is true and if so, then I suspect this dirt bag dealer reached their limit.
LJC – The dealers don’t have any limits on warranty claims per se, but they *do* have periodic warranty claim reviews that are triggered by abnormal claim percentages. These reviews can sometimes result in the loss of the franchise…so, to your point, a dealer can have too many claims if those claims are suspicious, abnormal, etc. Good point.
We don’t know the entire facts of the case, so really unsure. If the dealer did not keep the vehicle for say a week giving the customer a loaner and driving say 30 miles each day instead of only 5 miles per day tops, then the owner has a right to lemon law it since dealer did not do it’s job. If after say 4-5 times in for the same thing, dealer should take you seriously, unfortunately some do not. I have had to escalate my 2007 and 2010 tundras to regional service mgr. approval. 2007 tundra had severe rust in 9 areas of my truck only 2 years old and about 23K miles is all including all 4 chromed lug nuts/rims, tailgate, both rocker panels no paint and rust in corners behind DC doors, and both chrome bumpers. All were replaced under warranty after regional approval except for chrome lug nuts at 10 bucks each per lug nut since dealer only took off and polished but still showed some rust on the edges of each chrome lug nut. My 2010 tundra had pwr. drivers seat attempted repair 4-5 times in and finally after wasting 3 days off work and 100 bucks in gas, got regional serv. mgr. to approve full replacement but it was like pulling teeth. So, I can see the customers right to fully honor the warranty assuming the customer came in at least 3-4 attempts under the 5 year/60K powertrain warranty with no remedy. Dealers do not like to waste 30 minutes of driving time and only 5-10 minutes is all but these rare occurrences dealers have to go above and beyond protocol for a solution.
mk – Agreed. When the words “lemon law claim” are uttered, any Toyota dealer with half a brain goes all-in to solve the problem, as this sort of thing reflects very poorly on the dealership in the eyes of Toyota.
My guess? This customer won because the average jury hates car dealers. 🙂
Jason, do you think dealerships then need to do more PR to change the public’s perception of them? Or do they, more often than not, deserve the bad reputation?
-Tim
I think some dealers deserve all the hate they get, but I also think consumers are often inexcusably ignorant about business.
I can’t tell you the number of times someone has commented on this site complaining that Toyota won’t repair their 7 year old, 85k mile car free of charge because something had a design flaw…as if Toyota is supposed to design every part of their car perfectly and then guarantee everything forever. Who thinks that?
I also can’t tell you the number of times in my dealership days that consumers asked for special treatment because of who they were. I can’t imagine anyone sending a letter to the IRS asking for a special discount on their taxes, but they pull this shit at the dealerships all the time.
Finally, the number of consumers with awful credit (more often than not a product of their own poor choices) is appalling (I’d guess 15%). If you promise to pay for something, you should do your very best to fulfill that promise regardless of circumstance. Perhaps if all these people with poor credit could be a bit more accountable, dealers wouldn’t have to adopt business practices that turned off 85% of consumers just so they could make sure to take advantage of the 15% who can’t pay their bills.
So, yes, to answer your question, dealers suck. But so do many consumers.
Don’t let no one impact your lug nuts. That is what causes the rust to show up. Impacts cut into the lug nuts.
I have this same thing going on with my 2011 Tundra Crewmax. Took it to the dealer for routine oil change and told them about the harsh downshift when coming to a stop and when shifting into 3rd gear. After 2 hrs the dealer told me they could not duplicate the problem. I took the truck home, the shift problem did not occur for several weeks so I assumed it might have been my imagination. Last week the shift “jolt” started up again. I have an appointment with dealer next week, taking this lawsuit info with me this time…. I’ll let you know how everything turns out.
Good Luck Ian! Please keep us in the loop with what happens.
-Tim
Unfortunateley Toyota is not Toyota Dealerships, without ever working in their service dept I will never understand the reasons given for some complaints or questions I have had. I believe every service dept has motives unclear to me about their actions. Monthly goals and individual performance figures may be in play.
In this Lemon case, you would think an area rep would have had a long drive with customer. Sounds simple but no mention of it. If you throw in the patience factor of the customer and the varied Toyota Dealership rep its not surprising to find a lawyer more willing to listen.
Now in good corporate fasion an oportunity has presented itself to improve service but will it trickle down to the Dealership?
I wonder if the truck in question will now just find its way to some used car auction or be driven more by Toyata while looking for problems/solutions?
GaryD – All great points – I agree that many dealerships run their service departments more like a branch of the showroom than as a standalone customer-service-oriented entity.
In any case, you can be that truck was auctioned off by Toyota somewhere in the midwest where sales disclosure laws don’t require anyone to mention that this truck is a lemon…happens all the time, unfortunately.
How long do they expect a dealership drive the truck? DO you really think they want to pay a tech 8 hours pay just to drive a truck to see if there is an issue? Thgis happens at all manufacturer’s dealerships. They all do what they can to cut corners to make a profit. I don’t know California’s Lemon Law. I know Florida’s Lemon Law which requires 3x on the same issue and then you have to give the dealership a final try 4th time to fix the issue. When you file the Lemon Law it goes through the BBB which sets up an arbitrator between the manufacturer and yourself. Tehn you have to meet but unfortunate for me GM didn’t show up but sent a letter stating how wonderful their warranty was. I replace my headliner 5x before meeting with arbitrator. Using the area rep was a joke. In fact he accused me of pulling down my headliner not once but 3x. Then he pushed up the headliner in place and said there’s nothing wrong with my headliner. I told the little jerk open and close the driver’s door 4-5x and you will see it drop. On the 4th time it dropped. The little jerk wouldn’t look me eye to eye. He knew what I told him was right but he had to push the limit. What really got me was the arbitrator said that the headliner that fell down is a liability and could cause an accident, but he ruled with GM. So go figure. Then the manager of the GM dealership sends me an email stating I will never get a new truck because a headliner issue isn’t as important as a safety issue. I knew it was time to get rid of the truck.