Lemon Car Advice
 

So there is a 2017 Miata RF at my local dealership for $20,889. it has only 4,000 miles. The Issue is that it is a lemon car. They say it is because the hardtop needed to be replaced. Do any of you guys have any experience with Lemon cars? It seems cheap enough to be a fun daily driver for a few years, but I don't know it affects the resell value. Thanks for any advice!

It's a gamble. Car could be lemoned for any reason and I would definitely be weary of taking the dealer's word for what actually happened to it. It definitely will affect resell since it will have a lemon title. I actually lemoned a truck about a year ago because the fuel pump went out and they couldn't get one in for months. Absolutely nothing really wrong with the truck once it was finally fixed but it'll carry that lemon title.

A friend of mine is selling a 2016 fiat abarth fully loaded. Sticker was 34k, he wants 21k for it. Like new under 4k miles. Fly and drive it home.


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Lemon law vehicles take the same financial hit as Salvage/Rebuilt title brands. I'd aim to be paying, at most, half of what a clean title vehicle is worth.

Yes, it may only be worth half of what it would list with a good title, but every year that delta gets smaller and smaller. How long would you own it? I bought a salvage title car and couldn't be happier. And in 6-10 years that car will be worthless (when I wear it all out) and 1/2 of worthless isn't much.

While true, you are in the vast, vast, vast minority if you buy new'ish vehicles and drive them until they're only worth a few hundred dollars. It's also more difficult to insure and finance salvaged vehicles, to say nothing about the extent of the damage and quality of repairs.

I'm not unilaterally opposed to buying salvage but
1) Most people overpay, thinking they're getting a good deal
2) Each car needs to be considered (and inspected) on its own merits.

I bought a lemon-law Alfa Romeo 4C. All it needed was a reflash of the TCM with updated software. It's been perfect for me. And I saved a bunch of money. I don't ever plan to sell it though . . . .

I know in Oklahoma, you can't get full coverage on a salvage title car (not sure about Lemon law cars). You can only get liability. Which means no bank loans, unless you can self-insure. But if you could self-insure, you probably wouldn't be looking at a Lemon Law used Miata.