Florida lemon law, plain English
What is Florida lemon law?
Florida's lemon law is the Motor Vehicle Warranty Enforcement Act, codified at Fla. Stat. ch. 681. It applies to new (or demonstrator) vehicles purchased or leased in Florida and still under the original manufacturer's written warranty.
The statute defines a "Lemon Law Rights Period" — the first 24 months after the date of original delivery to the consumer. During that window, the manufacturer is on the hook to repair any defect that substantially impairs the use, value, or safety of the vehicle. If they fail after a reasonable number of attempts — typically interpreted as three repair attempts for the same nonconformity or a vehicle that's been out of service for repairs for 15 cumulative days — the consumer can demand a refund or replacement through the state's New Motor Vehicle Arbitration Board.
That's the state statute. It's narrow, it's procedural, and it doesn't cover used cars (with rare exceptions). It also doesn't pay your attorney fees outright unless you win at arbitration.
How MMWA is different
The federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. § 2301 et seq.) runs in parallel — and it's broader, more flexible, and more useful for most consumers. MMWA covers any vehicle sold with a written warranty: new, used, certified pre-owned, even some dealer-warranty resales. It doesn't have the 24-month cap. And critically, it has a fee-shifting provision at 15 U.S.C. § 2310(d)(2): when a consumer prevails, the manufacturer pays the attorney fees and costs separately from the consumer's damages.
Most of the cases we handle in Florida go under MMWA, sometimes combined with Florida lemon law as a backstop. The combination gives clients more leverage than either alone.
How MMWA fee-shifting actually works
When we win, we seek to have the manufacturer pay our fees. Not you. That's federal law.
The MMWA fee-shift is the reason a contingent-fee firm can take on a $15,000 lemon claim and run it through demand letters, depositions, and (rarely) trial without billing the client by the hour. Section 2310(d)(2) says the prevailing consumer "may be allowed by the court to recover as part of the judgment a sum equal to the aggregate amount of cost and expenses, including attorneys' fees based on actual time expended."
In plain English: the manufacturer's lawyers know that if they push the case and lose, they write two checks — one to the consumer for the actual damages, and a separate one for our fees. That second check makes them settle. It's the whole reason consumer-warranty law works on a contingency model. Without MMWA, individual lemon claims would never pencil out economically for a real trial firm.
What this means for you: we're a real trial firm, not a lead-gen funnel that sells your information to whoever's bidding. We get paid when you get paid, and the manufacturer is the one writing our check, not you.
Why we only do cash-only settlements
The default manufacturer "fix" for a lemon claim is a buyback — they hand you a check minus a "reasonable use" offset based on miles driven, you sign over the title, and you go shopping for another vehicle. That's the resolution every manufacturer offers first because it's the cheapest for them and the most disruptive for you.
The second-default offer is an extended-warranty patch — "we'll cover this same defect for another 24 months." That solves nothing if the defect already proved the warranty department can't fix it.
Lemonaid only pursues cash-only settlements. You walk away with money for the diminished value of the vehicle and the inconvenience of the defect. You keep the car if you want to keep the car (or sell it on your own terms, with your own pricing leverage). You're not forced into another defective unit on the manufacturer's lot.
It's a policy. Not every firm operates this way — some take whatever the manufacturer offers because the fee-shift covers their costs either way. We've decided the buyback-or-warranty-patch outcome under-serves the client, so we don't take cases on terms where that's the likely resolution.
What to do right now if your car might be a lemon
- Keep every repair invoice. Every visit to the dealer's service department generates a Repair Order. Save the customer copy of every single one. Photograph them with your phone as a backup. These invoices are the case.
- Note the date and mileage of each attempt. The "reasonable repair attempts" threshold is measured by visits-for-the-same-defect, not days. Three documented attempts for the same nonconformity puts you on solid ground under the FL statute.
- Get "no problem found" in writing. When the dealer tells you the defect is normal, ask them to write it on the invoice. They almost always will. That admission is gold for the case file.
- Send a final-repair-attempt notice to the manufacturer. The Florida statute requires the consumer to give the manufacturer one last shot — a written notice (certified mail) listing the defects and demanding repair. Most manufacturers ignore it. That's fine. The notice triggers the arbitration window.
- Take the case eligibility quiz at quiz.lemonaidfirm.com or call 844-321-LEMON. Photo of the purchase contract, photos of the repair invoices, photo of the "no problem found" line. That's everything we need for a first-pass review.
No padded cases
If your situation doesn't qualify, we'll tell you straight. The MMWA fee-shift only triggers when a consumer prevails — there's no economic incentive for us to take a weak case and drag the client through six months of procedural motion practice that won't pay off. The whole model rests on winning, so we screen hard at the front door.
Real numbers: a meaningful percentage of the people who take the quiz don't have viable claims. We tell those folks what to do instead — sometimes file a complaint with the FL Department of Agriculture's Lemon Law arbitration program directly, sometimes go to small claims, sometimes the answer is "you're outside the warranty window and unfortunately there's nothing here." Honest answers, not pitches.