The new models roll out of the factory into dealerships and eventually into your garage. During the first year, a dealer mechanic notices he’s seeing a number of the same models coming in with the same complaints. The source of the problem is, unfortunately, a defect in design or a component. He alerts his boss who alerts the factory. The engineering department set their experts on the problem and issue Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) to all dealers. The TSB describes the issue and outlines the fix.

The consumer is not alerted; this is not a recall. Recalls only address safety and emissions issues, not pesky little problems like oil leaks and bad transmissions. The manufacturer covers the repair only if the vehicle is still under warranty, though in some cases the manufacturer opts to cover repair after the warranty has expired. Examples of TSBs issued in 2008 were described in an article in the New York Times. Some small GM cars may have an oil leak from the oil pressure switch, requiring a replacement. Some Honda Pilots have front inner fenders that rub the tire. When the engine heats up, the inner fender can become deformed and make contact with the tire, requiring that the inner fender be replaced and better secured to the bumper. Honda may offer help to pay for the fix on vehicles out of warranty—at the discretion of the district service manager. These are fairly minor, but 2002-05 Saturn Vues and 03-04 Ions with their nifty new continuously variable transmissions have experienced a high failure rate forcing GM to extend the warranty to five years/75,000 miles. Customers who have already paid for the repairs may be reimbursed.

Not every car within the model group will have the defect. Sometimes the engineers can narrow the possibilities down to specific VIN ranges. Sometimes they can’t. The good news, if you want to call it that, is you can find out if there TSBs on your vehicle. Edmunds.com is one of a number of sites that provide the information. However, because of the volume of the database, you’ll only be able to get the TSB title, number and brief description of the problem, often too brief for a layman to figure out if it applies to any problems he’s experiencing with his vehicle.

For a complete print out of the pertinent TSBs you can fill out the search authorization form on the National Traffic Safety Administration’s website, they make copies and mail them to you. ALLDATAwill give you a whole year’s worth of TSBs for your vehicle for $24.95, a service renewable at $14.95 annually. ALLDATA provides the full text of the TSB as well as diagnosis and repair procedures with diagrams. A third source is BatAuto.com, a site with an online request form and forums for consumer and mechanics that provides full TSB text at no charge, though donations are not discouraged.

You can use these TSBs to encourage your dealership to do the repair under warranty. If you have no hope of a free repair, primarily because the vehicle is out of warranty, you can always take the full print out of the TSB to your local mechanic to expedite the repair at best. When the problem is within your mechanical ability to repair, you can always do it yourself.

Unless you walk into your dealership with the TSB in hand, the service manager and mechanics will not be inclined to offer the information. They are only reimbursed a portion of the repair so they’re not making much money to fix your vehicle.

Another issue is duplicating the exact problem described in the TSB. Unless the dealership can justify the repair based on more than just a TSB number, the manufacturer may not reimburse them at all. If it seems like you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, that’s pretty close, but there are steps you can take.

• Go to your dealer with an exact description of the problem; leave that copy of the TSB at home. Be sure to include the circumstances under which the problem rears its ugly head. For instance, if the misfiring cylinders or rattle or whatever only happens after the vehicle is warmed up, drive up to the bay and ask for a service writer or mechanic to jump in so he can verify the problem. (You may have to phone ahead to get this kind of response.) The purpose of this exercise is to give the mechanic a good opportunity to actually experience the problem.
• If the dealer is still having trouble resolving the issue, now’s the time to whip out the TSB. Unfortunately, attitude plays a major role in talking a TSB repair out of a reluctant dealership, so maintain a professional, calm attitude.
• If that doesn’t work, sit down with the service manager with as sincere a “can you help me work this out” attitude as you can muster.

A number of experts in the fix-my-car wars suggest taking that shiny, new vehicle back to the dealer for normal maintenance like oil changes and tune-ups—not required under the warranty. The theory is that the dealer will love you to pieces since they make a significantly higher profit on this type of service. With all this love, you can cruise into the dealership with an issue covered in a TSB and get the problem resolved free of charge. Independent mechanics will charge close to half for regular maintenance so you’re basically paying for goodwill, or paying for the dealer to do its job, depending on your degree of outraged indignation. It sounds smarmy, but to a certain extent, it’s just human nature. Anyone will provide a high level of service to a regular customer.

If you’ve come to the conclusion that all auto makers are scoundrels, that’s not necessarily true across the board. Hyundai’s website includes shop manuals with troubleshooting guides and diagnostic procedures—all available to the consumer. The company does not provide access to TSBs on their vehicles, but does provide a lot of helpful information for either the owner or the owner’s independent mechanic.

If you suspect your vehicle is a lemon, contact us using the form on the right and we’ll help you locate a lemon lawyer.

Before we pillory the automotive industry on lemon issues, we need to make one thing clear. In our economic system, the primary goal of a business is to make money, either for the owner(s) or the stockholders. Sure, they fill a need, but if they didn’t, they wouldn’t make money. Some even reward their employees very well, because if they didn’t, they’d make less money. It’s economics, it’s not politics, it’s not religion. If businesses take steps to not lose money, they do so in pursuit of their goal — to make money.

Your job, on the other hand, is to make sure the products you buy work and prove worth the money you spent on them. That being said, we’ll now discuss some of the tricky tactics auto makers use — to do what? — right, to not lose money.

We’ve talked about basic warranties, drivetrain warranties etc. Now we’ll move to a technique the industry watchers call secret warranties. Auto makers don’t use that term; they call them policy adjustments or good will programs.

Secret warranties are warranty extensions to cover known defects; these programs are communicated to regional offices — not dealerships, not the impacted car owners. Theoretically, a consumer with a defective vehicle off warranty could take the car to an independent mechanic and pay for the repair without ever knowing the service could have been performed under the warranty extension. Or, even worse, that consumer could have gone back to the dealer for the repair and still have paid for the service because the dealer was unaware of the extension.

There are no federal laws requiring notification of secret warranties. In the late 1970s, Ford was having problems with piston scuffing and cracked blocks in 1976-78 Fords. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached an agreement with Ford to notify and compensate owners and to notify all future owners through 1988. The FTC tried the same thing with GM, Volkswagen, Honda and Chrysler but dropped the notification requirement. In 1981, with the onset of the Reagan Administration, all efforts to alert consumers to secret warranties died. The Center for Auto Safetyworked with the Center for Public Interest Law in a class action suit against Toyota over secret warranty issues. Toyota agreed to notify and reimburse all present and past owners of a pulsating brake problem with 1983-87 Camrys.

The only states with laws requiring disclosure of vehicle defects are California, Connecticut, Virginia and Wisconsin. These states require the auto maker to directly notify owners of warranty extensions with terms of the warranty as well as provisions for reimbursement to consumers who have already paid for the covered repairs.

How to Get in on the Secret

Your first clue could be a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB), but the existence of a bulletin covering the issues isn’t proof positive of an extended warranty. The TSB you’ll need, there are often more than one covering the same defect, is the full TSB that provides diagnostic and repair information. If that TSB includes authorization to make the repairs at the manufacturer’s expense, you’ve hit the jackpot. All too often this authorization is known only to the regional factory representatives and not the dealers. If you see the phrase “check for availability of good will assistance,” you’re close to that jackpot.

Another hint that there may be a secret warranty is when owners of the impacted vehicles are treated differently — some receive full repair at no cost, others do not. Again, this isn’t a sure thing. It may be an example of treating good customers well as opposed to those of us who can’t afford to bring our new vehicles to the dealership for pricey oil changes. How you figure out if owners with complaints similar to yours are treated differently is up to you. In this brave new world, nearly every make and model of vehicle available in the U.S. has a blog or a forum. That could be your best source.

Once you’re fairly sure your problem is covered by a secret warranty, take that jackpot TSB to your dealer. Remember that the dealer may not be aware of the “good will.” If you get no satisfaction from the dealer, you have no choice but to go to the manufacturer, or rather the regional office identified in your owner’s manual. If you have trouble getting through to the manufacturer’s representative, the next step is the manufacturer’s customer relations office.

If you get no satisfaction and you’re generally the mild-mannered type, you will have to morph into a complaining monster. Unfortunately, that’s the recommended procedure. Draft letters to the manufacturer’s board of directors, consumer groups, the state attorney general, federal agencies like the NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation. In other words, annoy everybody you can think of who is in a position to go to the manufacturer to make you go away.

As a last resort, you can also try small claims court. There’s a fine line between a vehicle with a fixable defect covered by a secret warranty and a true lemon — one that nobody has really figured out how to fix. If you’re not sure where your defective vehicle sits on that line, you may want to consult a lemon lawyer.

If you suspect your vehicle is a lemon, contact us using the form on the right and we’ll help you locate a lemon lawyer.

The whole premise for lemon laws is that manufacturers have to make good on their warranties by standing behind their product.

Nearly everything today carries a warranty—from weed whackers to coffee bean grinders. We hardly pay attention to them unless the warrantied item is a vehicle that potentially will cost an arm and a leg to repair.

In legal terms, a warranty is an assurance by the seller of property that the goods are as represented or will be as promised.

One of our responsibilities as car owners is to actually read through our new car warranty and follow its guidelines in terms of maintenance, proper operation and authorized repair shops for warrantied repairs. The auto makers are fairly liberal in the terms of these guarantees, ranging from a low of 3 years/36,000 miles to 5 years/50,000 on the basic warranty to 3 years/36,000 up to 10 years/100,000 miles on the drivetrain warranties.

There are four basic types of vehicle warranties:

• Basic Warranties(bumper to bumper) are the terms to repair a vehicle for a specific time and/or mileage period. All factory (as opposed to aftermarket add-ons and upgrades) parts and some installed by dealers are covered for defects and workmanship. Other items like tires, batteries and wiper blades are usually not covered under a basic warranty. These components are designed to wear out with use, but some may carry their own warranty.
• Powertrain Warrantiesare separate guarantees, usually, but not always, over longer time period and extended mileage range from the basic warranty. These warranties cover major components like the engine, transmission and driveshafts.
• Federal Emissions Warranties are based on federal regulations and cover vehicles under Emission Defect Warranties and Emissions Performance Warranties. The defect warranty covers catalytic converters and electronic emissions controls. The time period varies, depending on the state.
• Corrosion Warranties provide coverage for rust-through perforation on sheet metal for a specific amount of time, usually up to 6 years or 100,000 miles. This warranty does not cover surface corrosion from scratches or nicks

For the specific terms on your vehicle’s warranties, check your owners manual.

If you suspect your vehicle is a lemon, contact us using the form on the right and we’ll help you locate a lemon lawyer.