I thought that some if not all US lemon laws actually brand the vehicle as a lemon and that has to be disclosed to subsequent purchasers.
My understanding is that CDN dealers are buying these cars at auctions where the "lemon" status IS disclosed. They are just not disclosing that status to potential buyers once the car is on the lot in Canada. I agree that Carfax would probably catch the problem. I think that using carfax when buying used as a matter of course makes good sense now given the number of cars coming in from the US
We should ban all US imports!
If for no other reason than the safety of Canadian consumers.
The topic of "lemons" is always interesting especially when Canadians discuss it because very few know what the hell they're talking about. In the current US import frenzy one of the problems is that in the US lemon law cars are referred to as "buybacks." In Canada, "buybacks" refer to daily rental vehicles that are sold by manufacturers to Hertz, etc. with the agreement that the manufacturer will buy the car back from the rental company. Every new car dealer's used car lot has these cars.
Every day I get faxes from wholesalers looking to sell US imports. Often they are US buybacks because these are the cheapest vehicles at auction. If an unwary used car manager bought cars from these guys assuming that US buybacks are the same as Canadian buybacks, then that guy has suddenly got potential trouble on his lot.
In a recent conversation I had with an exporter from California, I was told that California's extremely consumer friendly lemon laws are often subverted by people experiencing buyers remorse as a way to get their money back on unwise purchases. Apparently the buy back vehicles at auction are rarely econoboxes but are largely high end luxury cars of every make. There are entire law firms that specialize in nothing but lemon law cases - need a refund on that Escalade that you bought without the wife's permission? Call Cheatem & Steele and get your car declared a lemon.
In fact, for people in the know, buying one of these vehicles can result in huge savings. As lemons, they go through the auction at very cheap prices. I personally know three people in the car business locally that have purchased these vehicles for themselves - two Escalades and a QX56. With a little digging they were able to determine that they were declared lemons because of such defects as an uncomfortable seat or a sticky lock cylinder.
