Anyone know anything about lemon laws, I have a few????s

So I bought my 2nd TDI almost a year ago, an 02 Jetta ALH 5spd, she had 235k on the clock when I got it. I paid $2700 and I think I got a hell of a deal, it’s a super clean very well taken care of car. Anyways having owned almost exactly the same car before I was a pretty educated buyer and didn’t feel the need to run a Carfax, I thought a solid service history was good enough.

So I bought the car and it’s been awesome... but, a few days after I bought it I just ran a Carfax for the hell of it and it came up as a lemon buyback. It says back when the car had 25k it was bought back but VW. I asked the previous owner and he said he didn’t know about and of that. He claims to have bought the car at carmax several years ago and he wasn’t informed. I absolutely love the car, I’d still buy it again in a heartbeat. Obviously what ever issue it had has been sorted out a long time ago. I’ve put over 20k on it now with zero issues. However I have to admit my curiosity is getting the better of me. I’d love to know what the actual issue was. Does anyone know if it’s possible to get any of that info and if so how. Thanks in advance

VW would have that info. Probably won't give it though. Doesn't really matter as after 200k+ miles it isn't a lemon any more. Why worry or fret over anything that isn't an issue now and hasn't been for over a decade?

In California, the lemon law can come into effect if the dealer can't fix an issue within a "reasonable number of attempts". Doesn't mean there was anything major wrong, it just means the dealer couldn't figure it out. I'd guess that was the most likely scenario, given how well it's running now and the level of diesel stupidity at dealers.

Yes, it's moot by now, but if you're just curious get the state and date from the records and research. Lemon laws will be different state to state. Most only cover newish vehicles.

Yeah I know all this stuff is pretty meaningless given this scenario. Good chance this thing might be a 400k+ lemon lol. I just wonder about what it could possibly have possibly been. I’m guessing someone went through quite the ordeal with this car at some point. Maybe I’ll never know, I’m just super curious. I have thought about reaching out the VW, but I’m not sure if they’d be able to tell me anything.

basically what happened to your new TDI was that the dealership probably could not fix a common issue like say the window clip and the person said F this and lemon lawed it back.
its a old car, the fact that it has that many miles on it, clearly not a lemon. these cars run forever as long as its kept up.
never think for a minute that "service records" means didly squat. you dont know who did it, you dont know how it was done, assume the worst and change the timing belt and all the fluids ... so on and so forth.
i would not worry about "carfax" or as i call it "carhoax"
Salvage title is a red flag though
2700? its not a supper deal but its about what its worth. IMHO you paid a bit much for it seeing as you can buy a newer boxter or wrx with half the miles for that price in better shape.
a great price would have been 2,000 or less.
still its a TDI and thats the premium you pay for.
Happy to see another one go to a good owner.
have fun
do you plan on doing any tuneing?

Many times lemon law buybacks are sent to dealers or service centers that have more skilled or specially trained techs that can go through the vehicle with a fine tooth comb and fix the problem for good. The Ford dealer near me is one of those centers. Your car could have been taken to one of those places for VW and then re sold. No real reason to worry though if it truly was a lemon (an unfixable one) it never would have made it to even 100k miles.

I would try contacting the dealer that serviced your vehicle and see if they would give you print out of service history. If not, try few different vw dealers and maybe one will do it. Perhaps you'll find all the info you need from the service history. I've done that several times with few of my BMWs, although, some dealers didn't want to do that.

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My wife's first car was an '88 Golf, base 2dr model 1.8L RV gas engine with an automatic transmission, air conditioning, and power steering. No other options. It was a lemon buyback. Supposedly it randomly died. We had the car for several years, put nearly 100k more miles on it, never once missed a beat, was still in perfect working order when we traded it in on a '95 Golf new.

Saw that same Golf a few years later, still on the road.

I would not worry one bit about it. Plus, the car is OLD... the lemon law stuff hardly applies on something like that.

wonderwilley said:

I’d love to know what the actual issue was. Does anyone know if it’s possible to get any of that info and if so how. Thanks in advance

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The only thing I can think of is to ask a senior salesman, manager, or even a service manager of any vehicle dealership, VW or otherwise. Someone must know how to dig up the info you are curious about.
Good luck! It would be interesting to know how many people you go through that tell you not to worry about it instead of contemplating your actual question.

The question was answered in post number 2 by me. Go to VW who has the info and request it. They have it and can release it if they so choose. There are/can be privacy concerns and they may choose not to release the info based on that. I have had dealers release whole car histories to me but with all customer info cut out/removed. There are probably other ways but I would bet they cost a substantial amount of money to pursue (legal/lawyers/government). But why spend time and money to find out something that doesn't matter anymore and hasn't for a decade and is just a wonderment in your head.

I'd be concerned about getting a lemon buyback that just got lemon'd. I'd be less concerned about one that was lemon'd 10+ years ago.

Do you know what state the buyback happened in?

-J

In CO, the new car has to be brought back to the dealership 3x or more for the same issue to be lemon law'd. I had a buddy with a 1500 Dodge truck continuously destroying front bushings and ball joints for no apparent reason. After the 3rd time of Pueblo Dodge replacing the bushings and ball joints they lemon'd his truck and sold him a different without issue.

Also as Lightflyer1 stated, VW dealerships should have the entire history of the car searchable by VIN. If VW bought it back that information would be stored in that history. So as long as they don't purge their database every 10 years that info should still be searchable.

Good luck. Hope you know someone at a VW dealership to help.

Thanks for all the responses. The car was in corpus Christie TX at the time of the buyback. I’ve reached out to the VW dealer there. I’m guessing this is kind of a long shot but I’ll see what they say. If they can’t help me I might try my local dealer. I’m thinking beyond that there’s probably not a lot I can do.

What exactly DO you want to do???

While I was working at a dealer a car came in repeatedly for "the same problem" that no one could seem to replicate. After the 3rd attempt, the car was bought back.

After the fact, we were pretty certain the guy just decided he didn't like the car and trying to get something lemon law bought back was the best thing for his wallet, even if he had to make up BS to accomplish the goal.

If you're happy with the car and all the functions you care about/know about are working satisfactorily, why worry about a lemon law buyback that might have been nothing to worry about then, let alone 15 years later?

It's a cheap car that you otherwise seem to enjoy having for what it is. Drive more, worry less.

Believe OP is just trying to satisfy his curiosity. The info is out there somewhere, could take a lot of effort to get it. What some call a snipe hunt. Believe he knows that information will tell him nothing useful.

BobnOH said:

Believe OP is just trying to satisfy his curiosity. The info is out there somewhere, could take a lot of effort to get it. What some call a snipe hunt. Believe he knows that information will tell him nothing useful.

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Exactly, curiosity, not worry.

wonderwilley is just wondering.

akjdouglass said:

wonderwilley is just wondering.

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Haha.. yes!

Yeah there’s no worry at all, Love the car. Idk this kind of stuff fascinates me, call me crazy. I’ve read tons of random stories kind of like this over the years and I’ve been down a few YouTube rabbit holes as well. It’s like I can’t really explain why I love junk yards as much as I do, but I just do, something about the stories of all the cars. In this case it’s my car with the story and I can’t help but “wonder” lol. I realize my chances of getting any info are slim but it’s worth a try.

Lemon law buybacks are often for various reasons not at all due to anything being "wrong" with the vehicle. I've dealt with that at dealers. Sometimes, the owner is just incompatible with the car, and the dealer/manufacturer, in order to just make them go away happy (or, less UNhappy), they just go through the process or even voluntarily do so before the process has even begun.

When I was at Lexus, we had several RX400h models bought back due to poor fuel economy. Seriously, Toyota had done such a good job brainwashing the masses by that time with the darling Prius, that when they affixed "hybrid" to the RX, people though that equated to the same level of economy. It didn't. It doesn't. Not even close. The RX400h was about $10k more than the regular RX330 at debut in 2006, and it averaged only about 3-4 MPG better, which wasn't exactly good to begin with. And it was a far cry from any Prius.

Then we had people who purchased RWD V8 models that complained of "low power when driving in the rain". Well, the very aggressive traction control working to keep the rear wheels from spinning meant that, yes, if you stabbed the accelerator past about 25% from a standing start, you WILL experience low power. Because that is exactly what it is supposed to do. Saw a perfectly good 2005 GS430 get bought back because of this.

At Volkswagen, the 01M alone cost lots of lemon buybacks. Because VoA had this dumb 80% rule, that if you could "fix" a transmission for 80% or less than the cost of a new unit, that is what you were supposed to do. This meant that countless cars, mostly 2.slo Jettas since those were the most popular at the time, were forever splayed out across the shop with the transmission innards all over. Some guys had a trans out and back in a half dozen times trying to fix something. Waiting on parts for weeks each and every time didn't help. At least Toyota doesn't fool around with transmissions. If it has ANY issue, you get a new unit... in and out in a day.