If you buy a car, you expect it to work properly right out of the gate. You know that cars break down eventually, but you shouldn’t be in the shop a week after picking up your new vehicle.
However, you may also assume that the car is under warranty since you just bought it. Is this automatically true?
Factory warranties are common
Generally speaking, your new car will have a factory warranty. This may be short, but it is essentially there to cover for mistakes made while the car was assembled in the factory. You buy it at the dealership, but they just get the cars on a truck and then give them to you. They’re essentially just a parking lot, and no one is really involved in the quality of the product. The factory is, so they offer the warranty.
That said, you can buy extended warranties, bump-to-bumper warranties, and other such options. These will typically come with an additional cost, and they will be offered at the dealership. The factory warranty may not cover nearly as much as you’d expect — for instance, recalls often aren’t covered.
What if the warranty isn’t enough?
Even if the car is under warranty, there is still a level of quality that you expect. If you’re constantly running back to the dealership to have the vehicle repaired, it’s costing you in time, hassle, and missed work, even when the repairs themselves are free.
If it’s clear from the frequency of the repairs that you may have purchased a lemon, then you need to know about all of the legal options at your disposal.