Texas Lemon Law Blog
Often times, potential clients will call me with a set of facts that meets the minimum requirements of the Texas Lemon Law. However, once I ask the potential client to fax me the repair invoices, I learn that the receipts were either inaccurate or unavailable.
Many dealerships, in preparation for a lemon law claim, would find ways to set up the situation against the consumer’s favor. For example, the repair invoice always includes the legal jargon that the “customer states….” so-and-so. It never states that “we the dealership found or discovered a serious defect: — because that would be considered an admission to liability.
Other times, the dealerships will merge two separate repair visits onto one invoice. In the eyes of most Texas Lemon Law administrative judges, one repair invoice equals only one visit. The rule of thumb is that once you’ve driven the car off the lot for a repair invoice and the same problem re-manifests itself, then you should turn around, have the dealership attempt to repair the defect and request a separate repair receipt.
Another inaccurate repair invoice situation is when the dealership mis-types that mileage in and mileage out area of the repair invoice. I have had a client that noticed that the odometer had 400 miles added to it when it was in the possession of the dealership. The repair invoice indicated that only 4 miles were driven.
Like anything, if you notice that the repair invoice is not accurate, then DO NOT sign the repair invoice.