Considering leasing a vehicle in CA, registering in WA. Trying to understand the pros/cons, and this is one I have questions about.
Lemon Law applies to state where transaction was made, so CA.
But per paragraph c of the law, it looks like the manufacturer could require that the vehicle be delivered to a repair facility in CA.
It’s not clear if that means that all repair attempts for an issue have to be made within the state, or if the 30d “clock” only includes days it spent IN CA.
As someone who’s settled 3 lemon claims (and ate a fourth) on leases, I never lease with the expectation the car will be a lemon. Kind of an odd concern before leasing. Irrespective of whatever state you lease from, if that is a concern, the most important thing that you can do is document everything for every service appointment and ensure every repair order details all of your concerns and everything the service department attempted to resolve them.
That said:
With the caveat I’m in CA (sounds like you’re in WA), here was my experience with out of state leases. You typically open the claim where you live, but if the claim goes to trial/arbitration lemon coverage comes from the state you leased from, as you mentioned.
How this worked in practice was a CA lemon lawyer sent the OEM a demand letter with a “ready to file” CA lemon case, their lawyers responded that jurisdiction was where it was purchased and they negotiated from there. My lawyers reviewed the contract before we first spoke and they were aware of this.
You may get better lemon law coverage by leasing in CA, that’s not why I would lease from CA in your position.
I’ve never given it any thought either, but I’ve seen the topic come up a number of times for the vehicles I’m targeting. The pros outweigh this potential con.
