Consumer Protection Laws !

There seems to be a vast chasm in how consumer protection laws are interpreted in regard to the value of the faulty item.  If you have the misfortune to buy a dud  toaster what are called " the three R's " kick in uncompromisingly.  Refund - Replacement or Repair - and that is entirely the choice of the customer.

But if the complaint involves the second biggest purchase item in the average customer's life - after the purchase of a home - the law becomes astonishingly vague.  Car manufacturers present a united front in denying that " three R " solution.  They procrastinate and often deny any fault exists but usually have their dealer carry out a repair, with the car providing no service to its owner while that is taking place. In some cases the complaint is ongoing because the problem persists.

Such was the case with Ford vehicles from 2015.  Cars fitted with " Power shift transmission " brought complaints of extreme clutch shudder, noisy transmission and jerky acceleration, making them hard to drive.  Ford told its customers that this was not their fault and were reluctant to provide solutions.  The complaint lingered on for ten months and some owners received more than one clutch replacement.  The Federal court found that Ford's conduct was serious and that the car owners suffered economic and non-economic harm by way of  inconvenience, stress and frustration. The court fined Ford ten million dollars.

Considering the size of the car industry, that ten million dollars probably represents about one dollar per car for the Ford output during that 2015 year.  In other words, a rap across the knuckles - with a feather.   The public have long called for what are termed "Lemon laws " to apply to car manufacturers.   They want the right to hand back for refund where a new car is consistently faulty and that has been dodged by our politicians.

It is not hard to see why ?   We used to have a car manufacturing industry in this country and a lemon law would have been anathema to its profits.  We were begging them to stay because of the jobs they provided, and our politicians were not about to rock the boat with onerous consumer protection laws.

That was then - and this is now !  The world car trade competes for our custom and the proverbial boot is on the other foot.  From time to time a car manufacturer finds that a component proves faulty - as was the case with that PST transmission - and must restore trust by fixing the fault - and that can be expensive.  Without adequate consumer protection laws, that loss is suffered by the retail customer.

There should be protection in place and the world car industry must accept that obligation when they decide to market their product in this country.  There is now absolutely no valid reason why cars should not be included in consumer protection laws.