A: Is it yellow?

Over the years, I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked this question. Usually by someone who doesn’t like a certain characteristic of a new car, rather than a legitimate complaint. Often the next question they ask is how they can get rid of the car. In my eyes, this is the wrong question to be asking.

A car is a major purchase, perhaps the closest thing to a house that most of us will buy. Some of you are lucky enough to have cars that are worth more than many people’s homes. When you buy a new house, if the basement leaks they don’t give you another car. They fix the leak. A house is not a toaster, you can’t take it back. While you may have crumbs on the floor, your car isn’t going to do much to brown your morning toast either. It’s yours baby!

Things are different up here in Ontario. We don’t have lemon laws, we have manufacturer funded arbitration boards in place to protect the consumer. They are also there to protect the manufacturer from consumers who try to take advantage of them. If a consumer thinks they have a problem vehicle, then they agree to go to arbitration. The final outcome is binding, you can’t go any further. I’ve seen the decisions go both ways over time. Sometimes the consumer has a valid complaint and in this case, they are happily compensated by the manufacturer. Other times, the consumer is a whiner and they are put in their place by the board. Done, never to be heard from again.

So why am I writing this? Because I got an e-mail from a guy who owns a Lemon Law exploitation company somewhere south of the border last night. I don’t work in the States, so I don’t know how relevant these companies are, but I do know that up here they are more of a pain in the ass than anything else. Most of these so called consumer protection agencies are set up to exploit these lemon laws for their own benefit. How do they benefit? Money! Most of them charge membership fees for their services. They are often paid a small stipend for speaking on expo type TV shows and the like. In most cases, they are anti car industry crusaders? The scum of the car industry. Perhaps one step below ghetto used car salesmen on the food chain.

The Garage will not be promoting any of these services any time soon.

Image created by DanLabs