At Sina Rez Law, we often ask, “which car brand makes the most Lemons?” You can imagine that no car manufacturer wants to hold the title for “most lemons,” so the official answer is likely a well-kept secret. However, as experienced Santa Monica lemon law attorneys, we can share our insight on what cases come through our doors the most often.
Please remember that cars have never been as technologically advanced as today. Compare the standard equipment included in most of today’s cars (Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay, backup cameras, side curtain airbags) with those of the early 2000s, and the difference is night and day. All of the manufacturers mentioned below make great cars. However, considering the sheer number of vehicles each makes, it only makes sense that a small percentage of them will be defective from the factory. Despite multiple attempts by authorized service centers to repair the defects, sometimes there isn’t a fix. That’s when an experienced lemon law attorney, like those at Sina Rez Law, can force the manufacturer to repurchase the car, pay you back your money, and pay your attorney’s fees.
Now that we’ve got that disclaimer let’s dive into which car brand makes the most lemons. We’ll break up our discussion into the most commonly lemon-ed (repurchased) domestic and foreign cars and touch on what cases we rarely see.
Foreign
Of the foreign car makers, we see Range Rover, Land Rover, Jaguar, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz cases the most often (and in that order).
Again, it’s important to note that it’s impossible to walk down a Santa Monica street and not see several of each of these brands. BMW is known for leasing incredibly well, Mercedes has great selling models in every single sector, and Range Rover (a sub-brand of Jaguar Land Rover) is a favorite among luxury SUVs.
Nevertheless, we’ve successfully forced BMW to repurchase everything from 1 series to the 7 series, as well as their M and X models. Mercedes G-class and AMG models have been some of our best cases. We work quite often with the internal legal team at Jaguar Land Rover, who handles our client’s Range Rover cases.
While this section is technically dedicated to “foreign” car makers, note that BMW has a manufacturing plant in South Carolina and Mercedes has a manufacturing plant in Alabama.
Land Rovers and Range Rovers seem to have lots of issues with their infotainment systems, tailgates, liftgates, and more. An extremely common complaint we hear from our clients is that their screens go blank, freeze, or otherwise stop working while the car is in drive or in reverse.
Domestic
Of the American brands, we see Dodge, Jeep, and Chevy cases the most often. Is this because they make the most defective cars, or that they just have popular cars in Southern California? It’s hard to say.
Dodge’s Challenger and Charger models are incredibly popular among car enthusiasts and average Joe’s alike. While many of Dodge’s vehicle’s offer incredible value, it sometimes can come at the cost of craftsmanship. The good news is Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Dodge’s parent company, often does their best to professionally handle their customer’s lemon law claims. Having said that, it’s always best to hire a lawyer (essentially for free) to represent you in your lemon law claim.
Chevy, makers of the new 2021 mid-engine Corvette, often delivers performance that rivals cars with double, or sometimes triple the price tag. Nevertheless, we’ve represented countless owners of previous Corvette model years, Suburbans, Volts, Bolts, and Camaros.
We’re MoPar fans, and praise Dodge for bringing the Charger and Challenger back to life. The performance and comfort features in these cars mean you get great bang-for-your-buck. However, that doesn’t change the fact that we handle a large volume of these cases on a weekly basis.
An interesting fact is that both Jeep and Dodge are owned by the same parent company, FCA US LLC, also known as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and formerly known as Chrysler Group. FCA owns other car brands including Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Fiat, Fiat Professional, Lancia, Maserati, and Ram Trucks. Ferrari was spun off from the group in 2016.
What we rarely see
While we see Toyota cases far less often, they’re certainly not immune to defects. Approximately 4.5-million Toyota vehicles built between 2003 and 2016 including the Toyota 4Runner, Corolla, Corolla Matrix, Rav4, Sequoia, Sienna, Tundra, Yaris Hatchback, Yaris Sedan, Tundra, and Scion xB vehicles were being recalled because of safety issues.
