California Lemon Law Lawyer Blog

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.

Tata Motors, a leading auto manufacturer in India, recently came out with an extremely low cost car, the Tata Nano that sells for only $2,500. One Mumbai owner, software engineer Satish Sawant, his wife and 5-year-old son escaped from their silver Tata Nano – which still bore a celebratory garland of marigolds on the front hood – before the tiny car was engulfed by fire.

Not surprisingly, according to Mr Sawant, his wife "doesn't want to buy any car," not even a Mercedes."

Chrysler is having repair problems with its 2007 and 2008 Dodge RAM trucks equipped with the 6.7L Cummins turbo diesel engine. Typically, the check engine light comes on causing the owner to take it in to their dealer for warranty repairs. The dealers often find problems with the engine computer controls, the emissions system, the turbo, and the transmissions.
Dodge has issued technical service bulletins on these models dealing with engine control software issues and excessive turbocharger soot accumulation resulting in emissions problems. KABOB attorneys have arranged a number of repurchases of these model trucks on behalf of owners of these trucks.

One of our clients has a 2006 Honda Civic hybrid that cannot always make it up the hill to her house! Even when she floors the accelerator, the car just stops. Turns out the problem is that when the battery to the electric booster engine on the car is low, the tiny gasoline engine just does not have the power to move the car up the rather steep hill going to her house.

When the car stops, the owner has to back down the hill, drive around for a while to charge up the battery, and then make the run back up the hill. At times, she had to park the car and walk home.

The Honda dealer looked at the car three times, but gave up trying to fix the car because there is no fix.

Channel 7 ABC News consumer reporter Michael Finney took a ride with the owner. Here is his report.

After filing the lawsuit, Honda to refund the owner all her money and take back the car.