Legal Question in Consumer Law in Pennsylvania

I bought a used 1997 Dodge Avenger from a local used car dealer, I did not purchase the extended car warranty. The moment that I drove the car on the highway on the way home it admitted grayish white smoke. I returned home and did some research online and found out that these symptoms could possibly be caused by a blown headgasket, so the next day I called the car lot and explained it to him and he asked me to bring the car in and he would look at it. I drove the car in and he lifted the hood and looked under for a few moments and then told me that the head gasket was not blown and it was caused by the car sitting on the lot,he said just "baby it" and put some Bars stop leak in it. So I did. The car drove fine for a while and then out of nowhere it started to overheat and left me sit along the highway,stranded. I had several garages look at it and I even asked them if they could check the headgasket. The one garage replaced the water pump and all belts, I replaced the Thermostat. The first garage said that my headgasket was not bad. I drove the car a bit more and it over heated again, I took it to another garage and they said that it was the headgasket but they did not want to replace it. I contacted the car lot where I purchased the car and told him all about it. I told him that I only had the car for 17 days and I brought it back the second day asking him to check the headgasket and he said nothing was wrong, he refused to fix the car because I did not purchase the extended warranty. I said so there is no coverage when you obviously knew that something was wrong before you sold it, I then mentioned the lemon law.I live in PA and it appears that he lemon law only covers 03 and newer. There was obviously something wrong with the car before it even left the lot and he knew it. I feel that I got taken advantage of in a big way and the car already cost me near $1,000 to fix, the garage is charging me another $1,500 to replace the headgasket that should have been replaced before the lot sold the car.

I feel sure that there should be some type of representation or law that covers my situation. I would appriciate any advice that someone would be willing to offer.

Thank you


Asked on 5/17/10, 1:44 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Charles A. Pascal, Jr. Law Office of Charles A. Pascal, Jr.

The lemon law only covers cars bought brand new...not used. Used cars are bought as is.

Only if he told you something false would he even arguably be liable. He probably said nothing at all. There is no way to prove he knew of the specific problem.

By the way, what you describe is a very typical problem with the engines in Dodge and Chrysler of that era.

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Answered on 5/22/10, 2:03 pm


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