Owner Battles Dealer to Get New Car Replaced After Dealer Crashes It

Many car buyers find the process of shopping for a car to be frustrating and fraught with financial pitfalls, especially because it's not always possible to count on car dealers and car manufacturers to do the right thing if problems arise. The reluctance on the part of many manufacturers and dealers to make things right is one key reason why it is so important to hire a Los Angeles lemon law attorney if something goes wrong with your new vehicle.

Just recently, the Register reported on one egregious case in which a dealer declined to help a consumer in a case where it seemed clear that they should have made things right.

Dealer Refuses to Replace Vehicle it Crashed

According to the Register, the problem started when a 79-year-old widow leased a Hyundai SUV. The widow noticed the smell of the vehicle right away but had lost her husband the same month she initially leased the car so she didn't take action right away.  About a month after her husband died, the widow called the dealer and asked them to come and get the SUV so the source of the smell could be identified and the problem could be fixed.

The dealer picked up the car to investigate, with the assumption that perhaps it was the chemicals used in car manufacturing that were being released and causing the problem. However, when a dealer employee was test driving the car to try to identify the smell, the car became involved in an accident. The widow was told that a hay bale fell off of a semi-truck while the SUV was being driven, striking the vehicle.  However, she did not actually see the car again right after the alleged incident, so she wasn't sure of what exactly happened.

She had been given a loaner car while her vehicle was being assessed and was told that she'd be given a new exchange vehicle with the same value as the leased car that had been involved in the accident. She was also provided with an invoice showing the leased car would be put into the used-car inventory.

Unfortunately, the dealer kept putting off the exchange of the vehicle. Three times, she was told that she would need to wait, each time she returned to the dealer. Then, the fourth trip to the dealer, she was told she'd be signing off on a new four-wheel drive model of the car she had originally leased. The problem was, when she came to get the car, she was given her old SUV that had been in an accident - and the car still had the chemical odor.

The widow had been expecting the new car that she'd test driven but was instead left with the old leased vehicle after a long delay. She subsequently decided she wanted to cancel the lease because of all the problems, but the dealership refused.  It was not until she retained an attorney and reached out to the newspaper that she was finally told she could be released from the lease.

This is just one of many examples of a situation where a consumer was forced to struggle to get an appropriate remedy after experiencing vehicle problems. A Los Angeles lemon law attorney can provide assistance if your car turns out to have issues after your purchase.