California Lemon Law Lawyer Blog

Christopher Jensen reports in the NY Times that auto manufacturers are working against proposals to provide more authority and resources to the NHTSA, the federal auto safety agency. The agency has long been hobbled with inadequate resources. The maxiumum fine that can be levied against manufacturers for violating the safety act is not sufficient to provide any deterrence. Bills in Congress would be enhance consumer auto safety.

In May 2010, co-counsel and this law firm filed a nationwide class action on behalf of owners of 2008 and 2009 Honda CBR 1000RR motorcycles. The complaint alleges that the engines burn oil at an extraordinary rate and that when owners complained to Honda, Honda took the position the problem does not exists.

The complaint alleges that Honda breached its factory warranty in violation of the California lemon law by failing to repair or replace the faulty engines. The complaint asks for the remedies as allowed by various consumer protection laws.

In June 2010, this law firm and co-counsel filed a nationwide class action alleging that the 2004 and 2005 Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey models have defective transmissions, that the transmissions failure is manifested by a sudden loss of power, that repairs cost $1,000 to $3,000, and Ford typically has refused to cover any of the cost.
The complaint lists various remedies due affected owners.
The federal safety agency has received over 227 owner complaints of transmission failures in these models. Ford reported to the agency that it had received 2,791 warranty claims involving a loss of power.
The case is civil number 8:10-cv-01505-AW and is pending in the federal district court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Toyota has extended the factory warranty on automatic transmissions and electronic control modules on about 250,000 model year 2001–3 RAV4s and is offering to reimburse the cost of repairs.

The extended warranty will cover the transmission and the electronic control module for 10 years or 150,000 miles (whichever comes first).

Owners who wishe to be reimbursed should send the repair bill, proof of payment and proof of ownership at the time of the repair to Toyota Motor Sales, Customer Experience Center (WC-10) 19001 South Western Avenue, Torrance, Calif., 90509.

Christopher Jensen has more details in his article on the NY Times Wheels blog.