The good news is that Utah's lemon law - the one that protects car buyers from unwittingly purchasing a vehicle deemed defective - is among the most stringent and effective in the nation.
But the bad news is that neighboring Idaho has one of the weakest lemon laws, according to the New York Times. Auto manufacturers vehemently deny transporting defective cars from a tough lemon-law state to a weak one in order to make a quick sale. But consumer advocates believe it happens. At the very least, the incentive exists to do so.The Federal Trade Commission is considering a nationwide standard on the resale of so-called lemons. Normally, states are better able to deal with consumer problems than is Washington. A federal bureaucracy often can muddle and complicate matters that ought to be simple. In this case, however, cars are being sold and resold nationwide across a widely differing patchwork of state laws. A uniform federal standard would be good.
Every state currently has a lemon law. Generally speaking, they all allow consumers to give a car back to the manufacturer if it has a defect that has defied at least four attempts to repair. But when it comes to how much information manufacturers have to provide when they try to resell these vehicles, state laws vary greatly.
The FTC proposal would require all repurchased cars to have a notation, such as "warranty return" placed on the vehicle's title. This information would be on a nationwide computer data base that consumers easily could check. In Utah, such vehicles already are branded as "nonconforming" on their titles.
All defective cars would be included on the data base, including ones the manufacturers agreed to buy back before the consumer sought an arbitration hearing. Automakers object to including these "goodwill buybacks" on the data base. However, the issue is not whether the automaker willingly bought the car back, it is whether the vehicle is defective. Any nationwide data base should include all defective cars, especially those with safety hazards.
Car buyers need not be alarmed, especially in Utah. Each year, about 15 million vehicles are sold in the United States. About one-third of 1 percent of these end up being considered lemons. The chances of getting stuck with a true clunker are slim.
But when it happens, car buyers need the same protections no matter where they live.