Congress has just passed a bill that would give consumers cash vouchers between $3,500 and $4,500 in exchange for trading in their existing gas guzzlers for newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The bill does not specifically mention your rights under the California lemon law or federal lemon laws, but your protection as a consumer is something you should always consider when buying a new car. You never know if it will turn out to be a fuel efficient lemon car.

The idea behind the gas guzzlers law, which President Obama is expected to sign, is a simple one. Cars with poor gas mileage will be gotten off the road while at the same time stimulating flagging car sales. There is a lot of skepticism as to whether the idea will work and critics in Congress scaled back the duration of the program from a year to four months.

The government has put up a web site where you can learn if you qualify. The Car Allowance Rebate System can be found at www.cars.gov. Should you decide to take advantage of the program you should fully check out the warranty protection of your new car to see if it will meet your needs and to determine what protection you will have if the car is defective.

Remember: just because a car is a fuel-sipper doesn’t mean it can’t be a lemon car. The California lemon law and federal lemon laws don’t take fuel economy into consideration.

California lemon law requires consumers to give the manufacturer a reasonable opportunity to repair the defect(s).The paperwork the dealership gives consumers with each repair is an important legal document for a lemon law case. Consumers should resist the temptation to toss what often seems like a confusing jumble of abbreviations, auto mechanic jargon and undefined computer codes into the recycle bin. If a car turns out to be a lemon, these repair orders will be vital evidence in getting a buyback- a warranty refund.

There are three cardinal rules that every consumer should follow

1. Take your car to the dealership for repairs when it first starts to give trouble or if the defect is still not fixed after repair. Sometimes people with busy lives prefer to limp along with a defective car, figuring that they’ll take it up when they next bring the car in for service. This can be a big mistake. Why? When manufacturers buy a car back, California lemon law allows them to deduct an amount from the refund proportional to the mileage on the car at the time it was first presented for repair of the major defect. In other words, every mile you drive the car after it starts acting up could cost you money. If you make follow-up visits promptly, it will be easier for your attorney to prove that you were diligent in trying to get your problems addressed.

2. Always give the service writer a complete description of your car’s problems to the best of your knowledge and make sure that he writes down exactly what you say. Lemon laws generally require that a manufacturer be given a “reasonable number of opportunities” to repair the defect. Without repair orders that say exactly what the problem is, it is hard to prove that the manufacturer’s authorized dealers were given the required chances to fix the problem.

3. Always remember to get a repair order and keep it in a safe place for as long as you own the car. Dealerships may try to avoid giving them out. If you have already been in for the same problem several times you might hear, “you already know we can’t fix it (or we don’t think there’s a problem) and so we didn’t do any work. So, we don’t have to give you a repair order.” This creates a problem. They can’t repair your car but they won’t give you the document you need to prove it. If polite persistence doesn’t work, you can write them a letter stating the date and time you presented the car with a statement of the defect you brought it in for. If relations have deteriorated to this point, it is probably already time to consult a lemon law attorney.

The California Bureau of Automotive Repair publishes a guide called “Write it Right” which is also available on their web site (www.bar.ca.gov/). It states exactly what needs to be written on a repair order in California.

Hopefully, technicians will be able to fix the problems with your car somewhere during the repair process and you will wind up with the car you paid for. But if not, you may need to seek a warranty refund. Following the three cardinal rules of repair orders will give you vital documentation you need when requesting a buyback in a lemon law case.

Willie Nelson, the Country Western singer from Texas, sang “Momma, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.” Unfortunately there are mommas out there singing “Momma, don’t let your babies grow up to be mechanics.”

For a variety of reasons auto mechanics are not held in high regard as a profession in this country. The average car owner, when talking with his or her mechanic, is a skeptic: suspicious, fearful and ready to do violence. Or, when they find a good one they describe him or her in terms usually reserved for people who arrive on the scene in long white robes and halos. Both responses are unfair and inaccurate. These are emotional responses. Again and again the actions of a few crooked, lazy or incompetent mechanics/technicians color the character of the many.

There’s a reason for this. Joe Citizen’s reaction to his mechanic is not simply bad judgment or perversity. People react to events in direct proportion to their affect on survival. You hear a similar reaction if the bank ‘accidentally’ drops a digit. Then it’s “those dope smoking boneheads have screwed up my account again. You can’t trust banks.” It’s always they, them, those, all, etc. Note the use of generalities based on the screw-ups of the few.

How important is your car? In Los Angeles it is as important as bread. How well the car works absolutely affects quality of life, even survival itself. It shouldn’t be surprising how much emotion is vested in the condition of our cars.

That is one reason. There are others. For example, when we are ignorant about a particular subject, such as understanding how our car works, being challenged to understand things we know nothing about can evoke powerful reactions. These reactions are often irrational. Anger, fear, feelings of blankness, and despondency, these are common reactions to lack of understanding. Unfortunately our reactions are directed toward the person who places us in a position of not understanding. We look around for someone to blame. If the car owner is angry and frustrated, which is to say seriously emotional, it is predictable that too often the owner will select the wrong target.

These feelings and considerations add up to car owners saying very rude and frequently undeserved things about technicians. Having said this, let’s examine the mechanic in a modern vehicle repair environment. The first thing that comes to mind is that the mechanic’s job description has been utterly altered by the advent of technology. It isn’t just the extraordinary growth of computer-managed vehicle systems. Even purely mechanical systems in vehicles are many times more sophisticated than they were just ten years ago. A good example is the number of carmakers coming out with some form of all-wheel drive, and this is just one of many such ‘advancements.’

This is the technological environment. What about the mechanics employee/employment environment? There are so many good questions to ask. Here are a few. Are dealerships concerned about the well being of their employees? Do dealerships provide continuous and appropriate training for their mechanics? Is the widespread use of the flat rate pay system beneficial to all mechanics? What about training? It is an area where the author has considerable experience. The technological environment makes it imperative that serious efforts to train take place. Who pays for the training? What about tools? Here’s a little known fact outside of the auto technician world. Most technicians have to buy their own tools, and they ain’t cheap folks.

Finally, what if you bought a Lemon? The technician didn’t manufacture it. In our experience most lemons arrived at the dealership in that condition. All those recalls issued every year aren’t for problems caused by incompetent technicians. A few, and I mean a few cars probably have the defects they had on arrival made worse by someone working on it who either tried to get it done in the absurd hours assigned by the manufacturer for each repair task, or by a tech newly arrived from a technical school who has not yet learned to find his *&(*& without a flashlight. So I’ll say it again, we mostly sue manufacturers when they make a defective car, truck, motor home or boat that can’t be fixed. The reason we do this is because they made it, and theoretically they are supposed to stand behind their warranty instead of running like the CEO of a large manufacturer faced with an honest question.

I know a lot of master technicians. They are smart guys who talk straight and really like fixing things. They get a kick out of doing a nice piece of work that was difficult. They like winning and hate being lumped in with those who cut corners and aren’t dedicated to doing good work. So if you absolutely have to point your finger, point it in the right direction—after you cool down. And just for the record, I wouldn’t mind my sons being cowboys or auto technicians as long as they cared about doing it and don’t sing in a high, nasal voice.

www.normantaylor.com