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Laundered Lemons
Monday
June 25, 2001
Scott
Baker is the proud owner of a lemon. Not a new
car fresh from the factory, but a car first sold
as new, found to be a lemon, then mixed in with
other cars on a used car lot and sold without
a word about it's juicy past.
Baker says, "They blatantly lied to me."
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They're called "laundered lemons" and attorney Craig Kimmel says his clients are victims of dealers who don't come clean about their used cars. "They cannot misrepresent the vehicles past and they certainly can't lie about it."
Former car service manager Jim Lewis says, "I’m sure there are quite a few laundered lemons and salvaged cars at dealerships right now."
He’s right. Industry experts say that one out of every nine used cars is a lemon or has other hidden problems.
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So “Extra” brought an undercover camera, visited used car lots in New York, Pennsylvania and Southern California and ran the numbers on forty cars.
Using an internet site called Carfax.com
we entered each cars vehicle identification number (VIN)
and learned what most car dealers don't want you to know.
In New York “Extra” found a car with a history of failed smog tests. In California “Extra” found lots of rentals, commercial and leased vehicles. And in Pennsylvania, cars with repaired front-end damage and a lemon bought back by the manufacturer not once but twice, and yet now back on the lot.
“Extra’s” results are no surprise to Scott Baker. He returned his laundered lemon. He says, “And he looked at me with a straight face and he said we're gonna put it right back on the lot.”
To best protect your purchase, speak up. Ask if that used car is a lemon. Jim Lewis says, “If a dealer cannot give you a strong yes or no answer when you ask them the question, you should go elsewhere."
Use Carfax or one of the other car background check websites and hire your own mechanic to give the car the once over before you buy.
Otherwise you may learn too late that lemons roll just as easily off used car lots as new.
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