1 If I were on the jury, I would work out the substantiality of the nature of the defect and the reasonableness of the number of attempts allowed by the consumer by following the guidelines of Maryland’s lemon law. As the Council of Better Business Bureaus (2009) shows, “the lemon law covers any defect or condition that is covered by the warranty, presently exists, and substantially impairs the use and market value of the motor vehicle to the consumer” (p. 1). Moreover, there is legal precedent for these parameters, set by Laing v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 180 Md. App. 136 (2008), Zitterbart v. American Suzuki Motor Corp., 495 A.2d 372 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2008), and Evans v. General Motors Corp., 459 F.Supp. 2d 407 (D. Md. 2006).

In other words, to determine whether or not the nature of the defect is substantial, it should first be determined whether the defect is covered by the warranty. It should then be determined that the defect presently exists, and it should be shown that the defect substantially impairs the use and market value of the vehicle to the consumer. As substantial is a rather qualitative term and somewhat subjective at that, the first two conditions are the most important ones and should bear the bulk of consideration. If the owner feels that the defect is also substantial enough that the market value of the vehicle is impacted, this should be accepted at face value as there is no...

If there have not been 4 attempts by the manufacturer made to fix the defect or the car has not been out of commission for more than 30 days as a result of this work, then the reasonableness according to the lemon law cannot be said to be maintained.
Thus, I would work out these two points by adhering to a close reading of the lemon law as it is written. It clearly provides the parameters for evaluating both of these concerns, and the only real issue is with the term “substantially,” but that is effectively covered by the first two conditions being met—those being the defect should be covered under warranty and should be still existing—i.e., it was not fixed—at least not within the specified amount of time required under the law.

2

It would be possible to make a law that avoids or regulates the bait-and-switch problem without banning spot-deliveries out right. The law could stipulate that dealers declare up front that there may be a range of rates that they may have to go through before they can find financing for the…