Lemon Law Car Case - Success - Replacement Received (Jeep Grand Cherokee)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Anyone have or had any lemon law issues? The laws can help the consumer, and they certainly helped me.

The Car
In March 2014 I bought a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee, Diesel (that’s a mouthful, so JGC CRD for short - common-rail diesel). I loved the rig, it is the nicest car I’ve ever owned. The JGC CRD is quiet and comfortable (nicely appointed), and although it’s a little big for just my wife, our dog and me it gets decent MPG with that diesel, and for a stock rig with the QL suspension (Jeep’s Quadra-Lift, air adjustable height) it is pretty capable off road. With Hollister Hills SVRA nearby, I regularly practice offroading skills. With the diesel it has 420 lbs-ft of torque and can tow over 7,000lbs. Around town I get 20-25 MPG, and on the highway I can get over 35 MPG if I’m not lead-footed. The farthest I have gone on a single tank is 830 miles - I like the range on this rig and its 25-gallon tank. Doing the math, that’s 33 MPG. Pretty good.

The Problem
Now here comes the ‘but’ that you just knew was coming… but by January 2016 it had 29,000 miles and was nearing the 36,000 warranty limit, and it had repeated problems with the emissions control system:

• at least 19x the check engine light came on, for the same/similar code (emissions related)
• 8x it had been to the dealer for servicing this problem - the first time was with only 3,767 miles on it
• 3x (of those 8x to the dealer) it needed to return within 90 days, once was 32 days after a service, and once was only 7(!) days after. UGGH
• a total of 54 days that it was at the dealership for servicing - so that’s two months out of two years of ownership

I’ll spare the repair details but in the 41,000 miles I ended up having with the car it never stranded me and it drove great, but that nagging check engine light and repeated trips to the dealer were a little annoying.

The Lemon Law Pursuit
I keep a log book in the car. I’m glad I wrote down when I had a problem. 2014 was the first year in the USA for that diesel engine and also the new 8-speed transmission. I knew there was a bit of a risk buying it. The engine was out since 2012 in Australia, but in 2014 it was new for the USA. I was a beta tester. The log book was not required but was a great way to see the problem history (bullets above). The summary page was a concise way to pursue the issue with the dealership’s management team, and with Jeep corporate people.

The Lemon Laws are state specific. For California they apply to a car bought new and still under original bumper to bumper warranty. I contacted Jeep corporate on 27 January to pursue the complaint. Over time and several people I got some push back, but stuck to my guns and remained calm (sometimes wasn’t easy). I spoke to four different reps. At first Jeep offered me 8 free oil changes for my trouble, or an extended warranty. I could have settled but kept pushing the case while being polite, professional and firm - I kept repeating about the “systemic deficiency” the car had. After a few escalations, and most reps being polite but one was a true jerk where I could feel my blood starting to boil, finally on 09 February Jeep said they would buy back my 2014! YES!!

I had three options. Either Jeep buys back my car, giving me fair market value for it, and I can do whatever with the money. Or, I can get an equivalent 2016 replacement car from within the Jeep family or its parent company. Or, a subset of the last option, I can get the exact same JGC CRD but a 2016 one. Each option gets progressively better for me, money-wise. With the last option Jeep would cover the cost difference between 2014 and 2016.

For reasons stated above, I love this rig and wanted another. On the open interstates here in the west it’ll easily cruise at 100 MPH. Unfortunately it doesn’t get 35 MPG at that speed, but on trips to L.A. (350 miles down I-5) it gets 20 MPG at 80-90 MPH. Pretty good.

On the Jeep forums the problems were there for some 2014 owners, and then less and less for 2015 and 2016.

The Wait
On 15 February I placed the order. On a Jeep forum I could track the status of its build and inspection and delivery. It was like being an expectant father. Fortunately I still had a good-running JGC, so I wasn’t without wheels. There was paperwork and some red tape, and even though I had to deal with some incompetence and stupidity with that process, in the end it wasn’t too bad and it didn’t delay my replacement rig.

On 14 March my new rig was built - on pi day, 3/14/16 (math major here). I followed its inspection process, then railway delivery including stops and transfers between Detroit and Nebraska and Wyoming and California.

On 13 May the dealer called to say it is ready for exchange! It was a little weird driving in with a pretty new JGC CRD, then driving away with an even newer one. It’s also nice having a car with only 1,000 miles on it, and it doesn’t feel all that new because I’ve been driving the same rig for two years.

The Result
I have a new car, and Jeep came through well for me. I did not have to yell or scream at Jeep, although a couple times I did want to yell at a couple of their people, sure. It was a long wait, which was hard on my wife, but maybe because I’m former military you realize that, T-T-T: Things Take Time.

Thank goodness for our Lemon Laws, and this 2016 JGC CRD is proof that those laws can work. Many 2014 JGC CRD owners have been trouble-free with their rigs. Unfortunately for me, I was one of the lucky ones. :smiley:

On a sad note, we had to put our dog down last winter, just as she was bonding with the new car. She loved road tripping with us, even on the bumpy trails. R.I.P., Dusty Rose. :frowning: :sniff:

2

Nice outcome for you. I’ve never had anything close to that, other than warranty problems. The torque converter on my 85 Ford wagon crapped out with 25 miles left on the warranty, and Ford replaced it. The JBL stereo in my Prius was giving me hieroglyphics on the display screen. Took it in (and of course it worked fine) and they told me they couldn’t see any problems. Finally, I’m out driving one day and it goes completely wonky on me: hieroglyphics, buttons not doing what they should, etc. Drove directly to the dealer, left the engine running and dragged a service manager out to look at it. They replaced the entire module.

3

Did you do it on your own or with a lawyer?

There’s a lemon law lawyer that advertises all the time on the radio but not having a lemon I don’t know who ultimately pays him, you or the car company as part of the settlement.

4

I’m surprised you were that patient with it to put up with 19 repair attempts. Most lemon laws (and California’s is one of the strongest) say you can send your “last chance” letter after the fourth (or maybe third?) failed attempt to fix the same problem.

I think in most cases, you have to initiate a lemon law claim via lawsuit. In most states, if you win the manufacturer pays your attorney’s fees so it costs you little out of pocket, and that’s mostly for mileage offsets.

5

I did it myself. A few other guys on different forums suggested not saying the word lawyer in my discussions, because once you do, then Jeep has to get their legal team involved, they’ll stop discussing the matter with you, and then the already slow wheels of justice move even slower.

Then again some others have used lawyers, saying they don’t want to deal with the incompetence and they don’t have the patience to deal with the large corporation, that’s what lawyers get paid for - so they say.

As for me, I think I am usually better off not involving lawyers unless I absolutely must. Usually. But that’s just me.

If Jeep kept pushing back and not acknowledging the problem with the car, if I wasn’t getting anywhere, then I likely would have involved a lawyer.

6

Two things came into play here. One, the problem was not debilitating. The car always ran very well (except for the stupid idiot light that kept coming on). Two, I wasn’t well versed on the lemon law and how it works.

The events leading to me filing the lemon law complaint, really it was the service manager who suggested I contact Jeep and said I had a legitimate complaint, as I neared the 36,000 mile warranty expiration and showed him my summary of the repair and problem history. On one sheet of paper, it was a chronological listing highlighted in two colors, one color for the 19x when the check engine light came on, and another color for when the car was in the shop. From that summary, the systemic nature of the problem was clear and compelling, and easy to see.

One main reason I shared my experience here is that so others may know more about possible recourse.
At one point in this process, my Jeep had been fixed that January 2016, and I was driving around in the car, so Jeep said that means I did not have the problem any more. Jeep was saying the problem was fixed. This was one of the true butt heads I had to deal with. I was able to upload a PDF of my log summary report and attach it go my case, and I pointed her to it, and made her look at it while we were on the phone. As she looked at it I emphasized the systemic nature of the problem, and while the car was running well right then with no check engine light, I had very low confidence that the problem’s root cause had been addressed.

A few times, the check engine light would also turn off on its own, without any fix being done. Bizarre. I logged these also.

At one point the car was trouble free for 7 months and 8,600 miles, after which the check engine light suddenly came on again. I pointed the stubborn Jeep rep to that specific entry, because while I may not be having problems right then, like she said, I said I had very little confidence that the problem was truly solved. That was the point when she escalated my case, and the next person approved the replacement.

7

In California, it’s two attempts if the defect is a significant safety issue, and four attempts otherwise:

In California, car manufacturers can choose to have a state-certified arbitration process, with certification done through the California Department of Consumer Affairs’ Arbitration Certification Program.

If a manufacturer has such a state-certified program (and Jeep does, as part of the Fiat-Chrysler Automobile corporation), then you are required to use the program before you can file a lawsuit. The arbitration program is free, and does not require a lawyer.

If the consumer accepts the arbitrator’s decision, then the company MUST comply with that decision. If the consumer disagrees with the arbitrator’s decision, then the consumer can take the next step and file a lawsuit.

It seems that most manufacturers choose to have a state-certified program, although surprisingly, my own make of car, Honda, is not one of them. Another notable absence is Mercedes-Benz. Here’s the list.

As an aside, there’s a lemon law specialist from Michigan named Steve Lehto who has a really interesting podcast about his experiences as a lemon lawyer. He has lots of good advice about using lemon law, as well as more general stuff about car buying (new and used) and the law. He also has some pretty wild stories about some of the shit that people try to pull.

I found out about Lehto because he also writes quite frequently for OppositeLock, which is a sub-blog of the Gawker/Jalopnik site.

8

Great info, mhendo, thanks.

9

Always a Jeep.

10

I lemon-lawed an Audi TT back in 2002. Washington state. I initiated the discussions myself, but quickly found myself stonewalled, so I hired an attorney. He wrote one letter, outlined what we’d seek if we formally started the lemon law proocess and Audi agreed immediately to all of our terms as long as we didn’t formally initiate a claim. Like literally within a couple of days.

I was younger, stupider and not wise to the ways of finance, so I had leased the car AND rolled in some debt I still owed on the previous car (dealer caught a bunch of shit for this and a number of other irregularities and eventually found themselves under the direct supervision of Audi corporate). I got my down payment back, every lease payment back, and registration and insurance paid for the two months the car was in the shop. Audi paid my lawyer fees too. I came out about $5K ahead.

I felt bad for the Audi regional rep I met with to turn over the car. He said that he wished we’d tried to work things out with him earlier, that we could have been taken care of without all the hassle much earlier in the process. I gave him my notes outlining every time the dealer (untruthfully) told us that he had refused to meet with us since we ‘had no basis for a claim’.

11

You misspelled “Jeep”. :smiley: