Just wondering if anyone has dealt with a lemon suit before. I’m working through one currently with Audi, though I haven’t reached the need for arbitration yet. I feel like I may need to very soon, after realizing that Audi Financial has messed up my credit royally on their end by not reporting my payments (unsure if this affects the lemon case directly, except for the fact that I can’t get into another car lease before my credit problems are cleared up with the credit bureaus).
I’m wondering if anyone has settled out of court, or ended up going through arbitration and retaining an attorney.
I’m also located in Georgia if anyone has a solid Lemon Law practitioner contact.
I also had an issue with an Audi Allroad a while back. Used BBB and they did all the work. Ended up with a full Audi buy back. They are well known to settle before marking a car a lemon (using buybacks). Your post doesn’t explain the issue so not sure if it’s too late to get BBB involved. I always recommend them as a first step.
I used an amazing lemon law lawyer from Long Island, NY. This guy was beyond helpful and knowledgeable. No money was taken upfront.
I tried to lemon my Hyundai Sonata, we settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. Didn’t make sense to go to trial because by the time the date came for court, my lease would be done.
Essentially, it wouldn’t except for the fact that the finance side of my issue is keeping the Lemon settlement from coming to fruition.
My current deal for the lemon settlement (before I realized anything was awry with my credit) was for either A. cash settlement in check form, and I get to keep the car and do whatever I want with it. Or B. I could trade in the car for the same value, and use that towards a new Audi. I chose A because it gives me more flexibility and I negotiated them up to the same amount in cash as for the direct dealer trade.
The issue now is that, because AFS has gone without reporting my credit for the last 6ish months… my score dropped below 500 (over 200 points). Volvo financial couldn’t approve the deal I had been working on with the dealership for the last two weeks. So my immediate loss is first and foremost on working that deal and not being able to trade in my car and obtain new financing for another vehicle. Beyond that it just fucks up my credit in general and I wouldn’t be able to qualify for plenty of other things outside of a ridiculous interest rate.
It’s not a good situation, and though I’m not sure this would all be settled within the lemon case itself, I’m already speaking with the legal department ‘Customer Retention Specialist’ so all in all I’d be going through the same people to settle both cases.
My current resolve is for a request on a heavily loaded Cayman S (Currently in a nicely equipped A4 Premium +) for the same payments and zero down. The deal works in their favor because even though it’s a good amount of money towards the ~92k Cayman, that’s essentially net neutral for VW Corp to move cash between their subsidiaries (Audi > Porsche). Plus, they gain my continued patronage.
If I take them to court they will be paying more in damages, and also paying for the attorney’s fees plus risk losing my payments to a competitor.
*Attached the Volvo deal for reference. The $681 payments would have been if the trade about broke even on my end with cash down. Not bad for a $73k S90. Big props to many on this forum who I’ve been reading through over the past month to help me inform my purchase options. I would have pulled the trigger if my finances hadn’t been screwed by AFS.
A few years ago I custom ordered a Porsche Panamera Turbo. After a several month wait it was a lemon on day 1. My dream car was an instant nightmare. A “fault transmission” light came on the way home from the dealer. It went back to the dealer the next day and never came home again. They couldn’t figure out the problem. Countless updates, software modules, and they still couldn’t fix it. It eventually turned out to be a defective electrical wire.
Countless calls to Porsche customer service to resolve the situation didn’t really get me anywhere. I thought of hiring a lawyer, but when the car hit the 30 day mark (at the dealer, I Fedex’d a personal letter to Porsche’s North America CEO. He never responded, but within a few days I received a call from Porsche customer service that they would be buying back the car. It was a lease and they used a third party to take car of it. On top of buying back my car (>$100,000), returning my down payment and all made lease payments, they gave me a $10,000 coupon good for 1 year on any other car.
My advice, if you really have a lemon write to the CEO of Audi North America explaing your problem and ask him/her to have his team make the situation right. It won’t cost you more than postage and gives the company a chance to make things right.
I agree that is a good tactic to use. It seems like I’m getting somewhere with my negotiations though. I’m waiting to see what their response is on my suggestion about the Cayman exchange, and will be speaking to an attorney in the meantime. I think at this point the lemon case probably isn’t as troublesome for them potentially as this financial contract breach. The car I can get rid of, but my credit will follow me everywhere.
Honestly though, my experience was tainted from the start with a bad delivery and botched paperwork. A coupon is nice but I would be just as happy never seeing an Audi in my driveway again at this point. This is coming from both the perspective of my experience with the dealership, and with corporate.
First post here. Thought I would chime in. I had an issue with a new car I bought in 2013. I had it in to the dealer for the same thing 3 times in the course of about 6 months. Contacted . Bunch of lawyers. Skeptical of course. Within a few weeks I had 3 options in front of me. Cash compensation, buy it back, or give me a new one. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. Bottom line save all your paperwork on a new car. Every time you take it in save the receipt no matter what it is. Sorry this kind of sounds like an ad.
How did you find the specific address for the CEO, or did you just simply decide to write to him with the corporate address? How was your letter postmarked for the recipient?
OP you may want to also look into a lemon law subset known as “trade assist” which is not a conversation that will be initiated unless done so by you and opens up much more opportunities to remedy the problem
Don’t bother dealing with the manufacturer- a Lemon Law attorney can take care of it all, and he should be paid by the manufacturer, not the plaintiff (I’d verify that, but that’s true in CA). The only reason Porsche took care of Fh2089 is because the case was open and shut. Probably the CEO (or his secretary) handed the letter to the appropriate person at Porsche to handle the situation. They prefer not to pay for a lawyer and potentially negotiate the settlement to their advantage.
