Why Dealers are Indifferent If They Can't Fix Your New Vehicle

If your new vehicle has problems, the California lemon law can protect you from loss.  Unfortunately, many people who experience issues with their vehicles have difficulty getting their cars fixed.

Just recently, Road and Track discussed the problem of dealer indifference when it comes to making repairs. According to Road and Track, dealers don't generally seem to be bothered at all when buyers of vehicles show up with repeated problems that cannot be pinpointed and that cannot easily be fixed.

Why Don't Dealers Care if They Can't Fix Problems?

According to Road and Track, dealers tend to lose interest in doing repairs for a number of different reasons when those repairs need to be completed on vehicles that are under warranty. Dealers especially become disinterested in making repeated repairs when the same car has problems over and over. As Road and Track explains, “there is an inverse relationship between the number of repair attempts made by the dealer and how much the dealer actually cares any more if the car is fixed.”

One reason why dealers stop caring about making fixes – especially after repeated repairs – is that sometimes manufacturers skimp out on paying warranty claims when a car needs to be repaired multiple times. Manufacturers may stop providing full payment to the dealer for repairs either because it seems clear that the work is not being done correctly – otherwise the car would not need to continually be fixed --- or because the dealer has decided that doing the repairs is futile because there are obviously serious and unsolvable underlying issues with the car.

Dealers may also lose interest because manufacturers are ultimately responsible for providing a remedy to consumers when there are serious issues with a car.  Dealers have no real incentive to try to make things right with buyers, because they aren't the ones who have to provide a legal remedy. The only reason dealers would care about your customer experience is to maintain good will, but most dealers figure that you won't come back and buy a car with them a second time if the first vehicle you bought ended up having to be repeatedly repaired due to defects. Figuring they have lost you as a customer forever, dealers don't really have a reason to try to get to the bottom of vehicle problems or make repairs that actually work.

This can be frustrating for people who just want to get their cars repaired but who find that dealers have no incentive to help them actually try to fix issues. Dealers may actually end up just giving up on even making a pretense of trying to fix the cars, instead letting customers know that they should cease attempting repairs and make a complaint under the California lemon law.

If you find yourself in a situation where a dealer is no longer trying to repair your car, you should reach out to an attorney for help as soon as possible so you can explore your options and get your vehicle problems solved once and for all.