Four Repair Attempts Create a Presumption in California, Not an Automatic Buyback

A California owner whose new vehicle has been in the shop four times for the same defect is often told the car "qualifies as a lemon." The statute says something narrower. Four repair attempts inside a defined window create a rebuttable presumption that a reasonable number of attempts has been made. A presumption is an evidentiary starting position, not an entitlement to a check. Understanding the difference determines what a repair file has to prove, and it explains why two owners with identical repair histories can end up in very different positions.

The window comes first, and it is short

Civil Code section 1793.22, the Tanner Consumer Protection Act, opens every one of its thresholds with the same clause: the qualifying events must occur within 18 months from delivery to the buyer or 18,000 miles on the odometer, whichever occurs first. Not 18 months and 18,000 miles. Whichever arrives sooner closes the window.

A commuter driving 1,600 miles a month reaches 18,000 miles in a little over eleven months. For that owner the Tanner window is eleven months long, not eighteen. A garage-kept weekend car may still be inside the mileage limit at month seventeen. The same statute produces two different deadlines because it measures two different things and takes the earlier one.

Three separate doors, not one

Inside that window, section 1793.22(b) describes three independent triggers. Meeting any one of them is enough.

Gate: within 18 months of delivery OR 18,000 miles — whichever occurs first Cal. Civ. Code § 1793.22(b) § 1793.22(b)(1) 2 repairs defect likely to cause death or serious bodily injury direct notice to manufacturer § 1793.22(b)(2) 4 repairs the same nonconformity, four or more times direct notice to manufacturer § 1793.22(b)(3) 30 days cumulative total, out of service by reason of repair no notice clause in this door Any one door is enough. What follows is a presumption, not an automatic repurchase.

The three doors are worth reading side by side because they count different things. The four-attempt door counts repairs for the same nonconformity. Four visits for four unrelated problems do not add up to four attempts under (b)(2). The 30-day door counts something else entirely: a cumulative total of more than 30 calendar days out of service by reason of repair, since delivery. Calendar days, not business days, and cumulative across visits rather than consecutive.

The safety door is the shortest at two repairs, and it turns on the character of the defect rather than the count. The statutory language is a condition "likely to cause death or serious bodily injury if the vehicle is driven."

The notice condition most summaries skip

Doors (b)(1) and (b)(2) both require that the buyer "at least once directly notified the manufacturer of the need for the repair." Telling the dealership is not the same as notifying the manufacturer, and repair orders alone do not establish it.

There is a conditional attached, and it runs in the owner's favor. The statute states that the buyer is required to notify the manufacturer under paragraphs (1) and (2) only if the manufacturer has clearly and conspicuously disclosed the provisions of section 1793.22 and section 1793.2(d) to the buyer, with the warranty or the owner's manual. If that disclosure was never made, the notice obligation does not attach. The owner's manual is therefore part of the record, not background paper.

What a presumption actually does

The operative phrase in subdivision (b) is "it shall be presumed that a reasonable number of attempts have been made." The presumed fact is narrow: that the attempts were reasonable in number. It is not a presumption that the vehicle is defective, that the defect substantially impairs use, value, or safety, or that any particular sum is owed.

The presumption is also rebuttable. It shifts the burden on one element rather than ending the dispute.

Section 1793.22(c) adds a further condition. Where a qualified third-party dispute resolution process exists and the buyer has received timely written notification of its availability, the presumption "may not be asserted by the buyer until after the buyer has initially resorted to" that process. Read precisely, this gates the presumption, not the lawsuit.

What "qualified" means in the arbitration clause

Because subdivision (c) can gate the presumption behind a dispute resolution process, the definition of that process carries weight. Section 1793.22(d) lists what a program must satisfy to count as qualified, and the list is specific rather than general.

The program must comply with the Federal Trade Commission's minimum requirements for informal dispute settlement procedures at 16 C.F.R. Part 703. Its decision must be binding on the manufacturer if the buyer elects to accept it, and the manufacturer must perform within a reasonable time not to exceed 30 days after the decision is accepted. Arbitrators must be trained in the governing law. The program must provide, at the buyer's request and at no cost to the buyer, an inspection by an independent automobile expert. It must consider the legal and equitable factors, though it is not obliged to award punitive damages, multiple damages, or attorney fees. And it must be certified by the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Part 703 adds its own numbers. The mechanism must be funded and staffed sufficiently and insulated from the warrantor, and it shall not charge consumers any fee. The independence requirement scales with panel size: where one or two members decide a dispute, all must have no direct involvement in the manufacture, distribution, sale or service of any product; where three or more decide, at least two-thirds must. A dispute is to be resolved as expeditiously as possible and at least within 40 days of notification. Records are kept for at least four years, and the mechanism is audited annually.

One line in Part 703 is easy to miss and changes how the step should be read: "Decisions of the Mechanism shall not be legally binding on any person." The warrantor must act in good faith, and the decision is admissible in a later civil action, but acceptance is the consumer's choice. An arbitration outcome is a fork in the road rather than the end of it.

Outside the window, the statute does not end

Month nineteen is often described as the point where a California claim dies. The statute does not say that. The substantive remedy sits in a different section. Section 1793.2(d)(2) requires a manufacturer that is unable to conform a new motor vehicle to its express warranty "after a reasonable number of attempts" to promptly replace the vehicle or make restitution, and it adds that "the buyer shall be free to elect restitution in lieu of replacement."

Section 1793.2(d)(2) contains no numbers. There is no 18-month clause, no mileage clause, and no fixed repair count. What Tanner does is supply a numerical safe harbor inside that open standard. Outside the window an owner loses the presumption and has to prove reasonableness as a question of fact. That is a heavier evidentiary burden, not a closed door.

Why the volume matters

The scale of California lemon law litigation is documented in the Legislature's own record. The Assembly Committee on Judiciary analysis of AB 1755, prepared for the August 30, 2024 hearing, reports filing counts drawn from court records.

Lemon law case filings in California courts Three reported years. 2016–2021 are not reported in the source and are not drawn. 25,000 15,000 5,000 4,500 2015 14,892 2022 22,655 2023 Source: California Assembly Committee on Judiciary, AB 1755 bill analysis, hearing date August 30, 2024.

The same analysis records that in 2023, nearly ten percent of all civil filings in the Los Angeles County Superior Court were lemon law related. That figure is why the Legislature rewrote the procedure, and the rewrite is where most current summaries go wrong.

The 2025 procedure applies to some manufacturers and not others

AB 1755 was signed on September 29, 2024 and created a new pre-litigation and case-management track in the Code of Civil Procedure, sections 871.20 through 871.28. The track is specific. Section 871.24 requires, at least 30 days before commencing an action seeking civil penalties, a written notice containing the owner's name, the exact vehicle identification number, and the repair history, plus a demand that the manufacturer repurchase or replace the vehicle. Notice goes by email to the address the manufacturer displays for that purpose, or by certified or registered mail with return receipt. The manufacturer then has 30 days from receipt to offer restitution or replacement and 60 days from receipt to perform. Section 871.24 became operative on July 1, 2025, and it requires the notice information on the manufacturer's website, owner's manual, and warranty booklet to appear in both English and Spanish.

Section 871.26 sets the case clock for actions filed on or after January 1, 2025, and every interval runs from the filing of the answer: initial disclosures without awaiting a discovery request within 60 days, initial depositions within 120 days and each capped at two hours, a mediation date set within 90 days, and mediation held within 150 days. The section does not apply to a self-represented party.

Then SB 26, signed April 2, 2025, added sections 871.29 and 871.30 and changed who any of this reaches.

Has the manufacturer elected in? Code Civ. Proc. § 871.29 — deadline October 31 of the preceding year Elected in §§ 871.20–871.28 apply 30-day pre-suit notice for penalties 60 / 90 / 120 / 150-day case clock 1 year after warranty expires, 6 years after delivery, outer limit Did not elect §§ 871.20–871.28 do not apply Civil Code Song-Beverly track only no new pre-suit notice step no new case clock The election is irrevocable for five calendar years. The list is published by December 15 each year.

Section 871.29 makes the new chapter elective. A manufacturer may elect to be governed by it by giving written notice to the Arbitration Certification Program within the Department of Consumer Affairs by October 31 of the preceding calendar year. The election cannot be revoked during the five-year period it covers. By December 15 of each year, that program publishes on its website the list of manufacturers that have elected in for the following calendar year.

Section 871.30 handles the vehicles already on the road when SB 26 arrived, and it is a separate device from the annual election. It opened a one-time window — 30 days from the effective date of the act adding the section — for a manufacturer to elect coverage for all of its motor vehicles sold in the year 2025 and in all prior years. Subdivision (c) then supplies the default: unless a manufacturer made that election, sections 871.20 through 871.28 do not apply to it as to those vehicles, including actions already filed between January 1, 2025 and the act's effective date.

Two consequences follow, and they split by model year. For a vehicle sold new in 2025 or earlier, the question is whether the manufacturer took the one-time section 871.30 election. For a vehicle sold later, the question is the annual section 871.29 election covering that calendar year. Either way, the sentence "California's lemon law procedure changed in 2025" is only true of manufacturers that elected in. For everyone else the Civil Code track is unchanged. The published list is the only source that answers this for a given year, and it is republished annually; a list quoted from a 2025 article is not evidence of the 2026 list.

Where this framework does not apply

The Tanner presumption reaches a defined category, and several common situations sit outside it.

  • Used vehicles with warranty time remaining. In Rodriguez v. FCA US LLC, decided October 31, 2024, the California Supreme Court held that a vehicle bought with an unexpired manufacturer's new car warranty does not qualify as a "new motor vehicle" under section 1793.22(e)(2) unless the new car warranty was issued with the sale.
  • Demonstrators and dealer-owned vehicles are not an exception either. Subdivision (e)(2) names them as included, and the Rodriguez court explained why: the first customer to purchase or lease one receives a new warranty arising in that transaction, directly from the manufacturer. A used car with warranty time left over from someone else's purchase is a different situation from a demonstrator sold for the first time.
  • Weight and fleet size. The under-10,000-pound limit and the "not more than five motor vehicles registered in this state" limit attach to the business-use sentence of (e)(2), not to the personal, family, or household sentence.
  • Motorcycles and off-highway vehicles are excluded by name.
  • Motor homes are covered as to the chassis, chassis cab, and the portion devoted to propulsion, and excluded as to any portion designed or used primarily for human habitation.
  • Leased vehicles are not an exception. Section 1793.22 speaks of "buyer or lessee," and section 1795.4 gives a lessee the same rights against the manufacturer as a buyer would have.

What the record has to show

Reading the three doors backwards produces a short list of what a file needs to establish, and it is narrower than "the car kept breaking."

  1. Fix the window. Delivery date and the odometer reading at each visit. The window closes at 18 months or 18,000 miles, whichever is earlier, so both numbers have to be on the page before anything else matters.
  2. Identify one nonconformity, not several. The four-attempt door counts repairs for the same nonconformity. Repair orders that describe the complaint differently each visit make one problem look like four, and the count under (b)(2) suffers for it.
  3. Count calendar days, not visits, for the third door. The 30-day threshold is cumulative days out of service by reason of repair since delivery. Drop-off and pick-up dates matter more than the number of visits.
  4. Locate the notice, or locate its absence. Direct notice to the manufacturer is required under doors (b)(1) and (b)(2) only where the manufacturer clearly and conspicuously disclosed sections 1793.22 and 1793.2(d) with the warranty or owner's manual. Both the notice and the manual are documents in the record.
  5. Check the manufacturer against the current election list before assuming the 2025 procedure applies. The list is published by the Arbitration Certification Program within the Department of Consumer Affairs, and it is the only source that answers the question for a given calendar year.

Numbers to re-check

Three of the figures above move. The manufacturer election list is republished by December 15 each year and covers the following calendar year, so any statement about who is on it has a shelf life of one year. The Assembly analysis reports 2015, 2022, and 2023 filing counts; later years require a later source. And the same analysis states a 2015 figure of 4,500 in one place and 4,300 in another, which is a reminder that a legislative analysis is a secondary description of court records rather than the records themselves.

One more interval belongs on any calendar built from the elective track. Section 871.21 requires an action covered by it to be commenced within one year after the applicable express warranty expires, and in no event later than six years after original delivery.

The statutory text described here is from Civil Code sections 1793.2, 1793.22, and 1795.4; Code of Civil Procedure sections 871.20, 871.21, 871.24, 871.26, 871.29, and 871.30; and 16 C.F.R. sections 703.3 through 703.7.

This site publishes general information about published statutes and public records. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney, and reading it creates no attorney-client relationship. Statutes change and their application depends on facts this page cannot know. Anyone deciding what to do about a specific vehicle should consult a licensed attorney in their state.