A new Colorado law that aims to better protect consumers who buy "lemon" cars is set to take effect this week.
Senate Bill 24-192, which was signed by Gov. Jared Polis earlier this year, is set to take effect on Wednesday. The bill offers better protections for local car buyers who come in contact with bad cars or bad dealerships.
Denver7 Investigates has reported on the state’s notoriously weak consumer protection laws and sat down exclusively with Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who will issue a public advisory about the new law on Tuesday.
“Colorado historically had one of the weaker lemon laws in the nation,” Weiser said. “We went to work this session to do something about it. We've got a much stronger law now going to affect.”
Changes to the law include:
-More cars are covered: Cars used by small businesses for both business and personal purposes are now offered protection. Previously, cars purchased by small businesses were not covered by the state’s lemon laws.
-Coverage period is extended: The old Lemon Law covered cars for up to a year. Under the new law, cars are covered for two years or 24,000 miles, whichever comes first.
-More time to file a lemon law claim: The new law extends the statute of limitations to file a claim to 30 months.
-Number of repair attempts lessened: Under the old law, dealers and manufacturers could attempt to repair the car four times or 30 business days or more out of service. Under the new law, they only get three failed attempts and 24 or more business days.
-Lemon Law buyback notification: The new law requires a decal on the car and the title if it was bought back by a dealership as a lemon.
The new law, like the old one, still only tackles new cars. Used cars do not fall under lemon laws, but Weiser said his office will continue to look at this moving forward.
“We know there are concerns there. That's inherently a little bit different because we know when you buy a used car, it's not going to be perfect the way it is when you buy a new car, and we know there are concerns there. So we're going to keep looking at it and ask the basic question — how do you better protect consumers?” Weiser said.
Weiser urged consumers to report dealerships not following the law to stopfraudcolorado.gov.
