Lemon (automobile)
Encyclopedia
A lemon is a car
, often new, that is found to be defective only after it has been bought. Any vehicle with numerous, severe issues can be termed a "lemon", and, by extension, any product with flaws too great or severe to serve its purpose can be described as a "lemon".
used the term to refer to a defective model in Volkswagen
's 1950s Think Small
advertising campaign.
Economist George Akerlof
has also been credited with coining the term in his 1970 paper "The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism
." Akerlof identified the severe lemon problems that may afflict markets characterized by asymmetrical information. A study of rejections of important economic papers noted that before Akerlof's paper was accepted, "...four years after he first sought to publish it, three journals called it a lemon". Akerlof received a Nobel Memorial Prize
for the broad applications of the theory in this paper.
The first lemon law was proposed in California in 1980.
Consumer protection legislation typically labels vehicles as "lemons" if the same problem recurs despite multiple repair attempts (such as three times in a row over a short period, where previous attempts have not fixed the problem) or where defects have caused a new vehicle to be out of service for a prolonged period (typically thirty days or longer) for repairs.
Lemon laws primarily serve to force manufacturers to buy back defective vehicles or exchange them. Depending on the jurisdiction, a process similar to vehicle title branding
may also be used to warn subsequent purchasers of the history of a problem vehicle. This portion of a vehicle's history is, however, often not retained with the vehicle title when exporting vehicles to another jurisdiction.
One form of lemon is called a cut and shut or clipping, a form of body collision "repair" based on buying a wrecked car and sawing off the wrecked section to replace it with a matching section from another (similar) car. If improperly repaired these vehicles may be inherently dangerous; at high speeds, or in an accident, the car may come apart due to the weaknesses of the welds
or pins connecting the two segments of the vehicle or mismatches of segments. In the UK
cut and shut cars are treated like any car that has had major repair work resulting in what is essentially a new car. They must first be inspected for road-worthiness, be assigned a new registration number
and pass the standard MOT test. If this is successful they will be given a "Q" registration, meaning they are a kit, or composite car and not an original unit from the manufacturer.
In the USA the sale of cut and shut vehicles is illegal in some states. Cars created using two or more large sections of previous ones are sometimes called "zipper cars".
Improperly repaired collision-damage vehicles also carry the risk of unibody problems. Unlike heavy truck
s and lorries
, most passenger cars manufactured since 1987 employ unibody construction instead of a separate body and frame. This saves weight, but the unibody is prone to bend (it is designed to do so in an impact, to absorb part of the energy of the shock) or suffer damage in severe collisions, causing the vehicle not to handle correctly or causing other mechanical parts to wear prematurely if the damaged unibody vehicle is driven after an accident.
Today, there are vehicle history services that can help a prospective used car buyer by providing a "history report" based on the vehicle's serial number (VIN
). These reports will indicate items of public record, such as vehicle title branding
, lemon law buybacks and recalls. They may indicate minor/moderate collision damage or improper vehicle maintenance. An attempt to identify vehicles which have been previously owned by hire car rental agencies, police and emergency services or taxi fleets is also made. However, consumers should research vehicles carefully, as these reporting services only report the information to which they have access.
Manufacturers have been known to "hide" lemon law buybacks from these reporting services through such unscrupulous methods as holding the buyback vehicle in a dealer's inventory for a short period of time, then funneling it through routine inventory (so-called "dealer only") auctions where the buyback vehicle re-enters the used market as a seemingly legitimate vehicle. While history reports can provide useful information and highlight trouble areas, consumers are still advised to have a trusted, independent mechanic perform a pre-buy inspection on any used vehicle of which they do not personally know the history.
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
, often new, that is found to be defective only after it has been bought. Any vehicle with numerous, severe issues can be termed a "lemon", and, by extension, any product with flaws too great or severe to serve its purpose can be described as a "lemon".
Origin
The use of the word 'lemon' to describe a highly flawed item predates its use in describing cars, and can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century. Julian KoenigJulian Koenig
Julian Koenig is an award winning copywriter and widely considered one of the greatest in the history of advertising. He was inducted into The One Club in 1966.-Background and family:...
used the term to refer to a defective model in Volkswagen
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
's 1950s Think Small
Think Small
Think Small was an advertising campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle, created by Julian Koenig at the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency in the 1950s. It was ranked as the best advertising campaign of the twentieth century by Ad Age, in a survey of North American advertisements...
advertising campaign.
Economist George Akerlof
George Akerlof
George Arthur Akerlof is an American economist and Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics George Arthur Akerlof (born June 17, 1940) is an American economist and Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of...
has also been credited with coining the term in his 1970 paper "The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism
The Market for Lemons
"The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism" is a 1970 paper by the economist George Akerlof. It discusses information asymmetry, which occurs when the seller knows more about a product than the buyer. A lemon is an American slang term for a car that is found to be...
." Akerlof identified the severe lemon problems that may afflict markets characterized by asymmetrical information. A study of rejections of important economic papers noted that before Akerlof's paper was accepted, "...four years after he first sought to publish it, three journals called it a lemon". Akerlof received a Nobel Memorial Prize
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, but officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel , is an award for outstanding contributions to the field of economics, generally regarded as one of the...
for the broad applications of the theory in this paper.
The first lemon law was proposed in California in 1980.
New vehicles
New vehicles may contain hidden mechanical flaws or defects in workmanship, caused by design flaws or by an error during the automotive factory build process. These errors can range from parts being installed incorrectly to a tool that was used to build the car not being removed or a batch of materials with structural or chemical flaws.Consumer protection legislation typically labels vehicles as "lemons" if the same problem recurs despite multiple repair attempts (such as three times in a row over a short period, where previous attempts have not fixed the problem) or where defects have caused a new vehicle to be out of service for a prolonged period (typically thirty days or longer) for repairs.
Lemon laws primarily serve to force manufacturers to buy back defective vehicles or exchange them. Depending on the jurisdiction, a process similar to vehicle title branding
Vehicle title branding
Vehicle title branding is the use of a permanent designation on a vehicle's title, registration or permit documents to indicate that a vehicle has been written off due to collision, fire or flood damage or has been sold for scrap....
may also be used to warn subsequent purchasers of the history of a problem vehicle. This portion of a vehicle's history is, however, often not retained with the vehicle title when exporting vehicles to another jurisdiction.
Used vehicles
While used cars may be plagued with the same problems that beset new vehicles, used vehicles may also have been abused, improperly maintained or poorly repaired, been unprofessionally rebuilt after a collision or tampered with in some manner to conceal high mileage, mechanical defects, corrosion or other damage.One form of lemon is called a cut and shut or clipping, a form of body collision "repair" based on buying a wrecked car and sawing off the wrecked section to replace it with a matching section from another (similar) car. If improperly repaired these vehicles may be inherently dangerous; at high speeds, or in an accident, the car may come apart due to the weaknesses of the welds
Welding
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...
or pins connecting the two segments of the vehicle or mismatches of segments. In the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
cut and shut cars are treated like any car that has had major repair work resulting in what is essentially a new car. They must first be inspected for road-worthiness, be assigned a new registration number
Vehicle registration plate
A vehicle registration plate is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies the vehicle within the issuing region's database...
and pass the standard MOT test. If this is successful they will be given a "Q" registration, meaning they are a kit, or composite car and not an original unit from the manufacturer.
In the USA the sale of cut and shut vehicles is illegal in some states. Cars created using two or more large sections of previous ones are sometimes called "zipper cars".
Improperly repaired collision-damage vehicles also carry the risk of unibody problems. Unlike heavy truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
s and lorries
Lorry
-Transport:* Lorry or truck, a large motor vehicle* Lorry, or a Mine car in USA: an open gondola with a tipping trough* Lorry , a horse-drawn low-loading trolley-In fiction:...
, most passenger cars manufactured since 1987 employ unibody construction instead of a separate body and frame. This saves weight, but the unibody is prone to bend (it is designed to do so in an impact, to absorb part of the energy of the shock) or suffer damage in severe collisions, causing the vehicle not to handle correctly or causing other mechanical parts to wear prematurely if the damaged unibody vehicle is driven after an accident.
Today, there are vehicle history services that can help a prospective used car buyer by providing a "history report" based on the vehicle's serial number (VIN
Vehicle identification number
A Vehicle Identification Number, commonly abbreviated to VIN, is a unique serial number used by the automotive industry to identify individual motor vehicles. VINs were first used in 1954...
). These reports will indicate items of public record, such as vehicle title branding
Vehicle title branding
Vehicle title branding is the use of a permanent designation on a vehicle's title, registration or permit documents to indicate that a vehicle has been written off due to collision, fire or flood damage or has been sold for scrap....
, lemon law buybacks and recalls. They may indicate minor/moderate collision damage or improper vehicle maintenance. An attempt to identify vehicles which have been previously owned by hire car rental agencies, police and emergency services or taxi fleets is also made. However, consumers should research vehicles carefully, as these reporting services only report the information to which they have access.
Manufacturers have been known to "hide" lemon law buybacks from these reporting services through such unscrupulous methods as holding the buyback vehicle in a dealer's inventory for a short period of time, then funneling it through routine inventory (so-called "dealer only") auctions where the buyback vehicle re-enters the used market as a seemingly legitimate vehicle. While history reports can provide useful information and highlight trouble areas, consumers are still advised to have a trusted, independent mechanic perform a pre-buy inspection on any used vehicle of which they do not personally know the history.
See also
- Lemon socialismLemon socialism"Lemon socialism" is a pejorative term for government support of private-sector companies whose imminent collapse is perceived to threaten broader economic stability. Some assert it is not a subcategory of socialism per se; rather, it points to a corruption of free-market capitalist systems, which...
- TotaledTotaledIn motor insurance, a total loss is a situation in which a vehicle is damaged and the cost of repair and salvage would exceed the vehicle's market value...
- Used car
- Vehicle title brandingVehicle title brandingVehicle title branding is the use of a permanent designation on a vehicle's title, registration or permit documents to indicate that a vehicle has been written off due to collision, fire or flood damage or has been sold for scrap....
- For Canada - Canadian Motor Vehicle Arbitration PlanCanadian Motor Vehicle Arbitration PlanThe Canadian Motor Vehicle Arbitration Plan is a dispute resolution program for consumers in Canada that are experiencing problems with the assembly of their vehicle or with how the manufacturer implements its new vehicle warranty...