Everybody probably knows me as Chief Complainer at this point, based on my incessant bitching over my BRZ downtime. I'll probably stop right about the time I get back in the driver's seat. I do love the car, but I'm not amused by Subaru's inability to get things done. I think I'm looking at five weeks out of the car when I get it back. I'm currently at two and a half, waiting for an ECU to ship "the week of 9/10."
Anyway.
I looked in to the CA lemon law, to see what my options are. It turns out, especially for enthusiasts, the lemon law really offers no protection at all. I covered this a little bit in another post, but I thought I'd summarize in a new thread. I'm not an attorney, but I did read the relevant document, and this is my understanding. If you want to give it a read,
knock yourself out. If somebody could tell me I'm wrong, I'd (probably) be very happy.
The (CA) lemon law gives you two options: replacement car, or replacement dollars. Except, not really: the manufacturer has no obligation to repay you for anything you've done to the car, such as tint or paint correction. There's a subsection 1793.2 (e) 1 that seems to apply to goods that get permanently affixed to real property (an antenna mast cemented into the ground? I don't know) which you might argue covers window film, clear bras, the labor to remove swirls, and so on. But I don't think the rest of the language supports that reading. 1793.2 does seem to directly state in relation to cars that non-manufacturer-installed goods aren't covered. In the case of a cat back or something, this makes sense -- you can take the cat back with you. But in the case of film or paint/interior protection, you get bonked.
By the way, if you choose dollars, you get bonked even harder, because you
don't get back the full purchase price of the car -- you get the pro rata portion back assuming a useful life of 120,000 miles. In my case, I would only get back 97.5% of the purchase price. Just gone forever. Lame, right? I didn't
endeavor to buy a car that turned out to be unreliable. Why punish me for walking if that's what I choose? There are those who are dishonest who might try to drive a car around for a year and get their money back if not for this pro rata remedy, so I understand the thinking, but just set the criteria correspondingly higher for a full refund. It isn't often something like what I'm experiencing happens.
Long story short, replacement car or replacement dollars, if you have aftermarket additions you can't remove, you
lose. If you want dollars, you lose
more.
Now for the practical matter...how agreements induce certain behaviors and apply pressure.
So I was considering this further, and I got to thinking, well, maybe this wasn't the intent of the law. They get the car back, but they can't sell it as new, right? In that case, it should be a money-losing proposition for them, and this should motivate a settlement. So, maybe the legislature took the position that no car is completely fucked, and if they can motivate the manufacturer to settle for an amount that could cover anticipated future repairs, the consumer is protected. In other words, they should be willing to give you anything less than what they'd lose re-selling the car as used in order to have you agree not to assert your rights under the lemon law relating to the issue. It's simple: they can either lose, or lose less by paying up. But unfortunately, for enthusiast-class cars like ours, I bet the used sale price right now for a car with a few thousand miles is practically the same as what they can get for it new...and so actually, the dealer can make money on the car twice.
My sense is thus that a direct dollars and cents argument yields no motivation at all to take care of ANY of this stuff. As a consumer, you lose every time. You can't apply any leverage at all to get things done.
This actually makes me wonder what any manufacturer would be scared of at all. The laws have no teeth, it would seem. I guess a really angry customer could always sue?