State by state
Lemon laws
Every state can force a manufacturer to replace or buy back a new vehicle it cannot repair. What differs is how many failed repairs it takes, how long the window stays open, and how little time you get to act once it closes.
A lemon law does not ask whether a car is bad. It asks a narrower question with a countable answer: has the manufacturer had a reasonable number of attempts at the same defect, or has the vehicle spent long enough off the road, inside a window measured in months and usually in miles. Meet the test and the burden shifts. Miss it and the claim is not over, but the owner now has to prove what the test would have assumed.
Those numbers are the whole of it, and they are different in every state. The table below is read from each state's own statute and the agency that administers it, both linked on each state's page with the date it was last checked. 47 of the 51 jurisdictions are here; the 4 that are not are named at the bottom, with the office to ask instead, because a state whose law could not be read at the source does not get a page of numbers here.
Every state's thresholds
| State | Repair attempts | If it is a safety defect | Days out of service | Window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 3 | — | — | 12 months |
| Arizona | 4 | — | 30 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| California | 4 | 2 | 30 | 18 months / 18,000 miles |
| Colorado | 3 | 2 | 24 | 12 months |
| Connecticut | 4 | 2 | 30 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| Delaware | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| District of Columbia | 4 | 1 | 30 | 24 months / 18,000 miles |
| Florida | 3 | — | 30 | 24 months |
| Georgia | 3 | 1 | 30 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| Hawaii | 3 | — | 30 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| Idaho | 4 | — | 30 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| Illinois | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months / 12,000 miles |
| Indiana | 4 | — | 30 | 18 months / 18,000 miles |
| Iowa | 3 | — | 20 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| Kansas | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| Kentucky | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months / 12,000 miles |
| Louisiana | 4 | — | 45 | 12 months |
| Maine | 3 | 1 | 15 | See page |
| Maryland | 4 | 1 | 30 | 24 months / 18,000 miles |
| Massachusetts | 3 | — | 15 | 12 months / 15,000 miles |
| Michigan | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| Minnesota | 4 | 1 | 30 | 24 months |
| Mississippi | 3 | — | 15 | 12 months |
| Missouri | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| Montana | 4 | — | — | 24 months / 18,000 miles |
| Nebraska | 4 | — | 40 | 24 months |
| Nevada | 4 | — | — | 12 months |
| New Hampshire | 3 | — | 30 | See page |
| New Jersey | 3 | — | 20 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| New York | 4 | — | 30 | 24 months / 18,000 miles |
| North Carolina | 4 | — | 20 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| Ohio | 3 | 1 | 30 | 12 months / 18,000 miles |
| Oklahoma | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| Oregon | 3 | 1 | 30 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| Pennsylvania | 3 | — | 30 | 12 months / 12,000 miles |
| Rhode Island | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months / 15,000 miles |
| South Carolina | 3 | — | 30 | 12 months / 12,000 miles |
| South Dakota | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months / 12,000 miles |
| Tennessee | 3 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| Texas | 4 | 2 | 30 | 24 months / 24,000 miles |
| Utah | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| Vermont | 3 | — | 30 | See page |
| Virginia | 3 | 1 | 30 | 18 months |
| Washington | 4 | 2 | 30 | 30 months |
| West Virginia | 3 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| Wisconsin | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months |
| Wyoming | 4 | — | 30 | 12 months |
A dash means the state's statute sets no separate figure for that test, not that the test is easier to meet. Each state's page says what its statute does instead.
What the table shows
28 of 47 states settle on 4 repair attempts for the same defect, and 35 of 44 count 30 cumulative days out of service. The convergence is not a coincidence: most of these statutes were written in the decade after Connecticut passed the first one in 1982, and they copied each other.
23 states set no mileage limit at all , which matters more than it sounds: a mileage cap is what ends the window early for anybody who drives to work.
4 of these states also have a separate used-car law. Everywhere else, a used vehicle is covered only while the original manufacturer's warranty is still running.
The states not on this table
These 4 publish their statutes and consumer guidance through sites that will not serve an automated reader, and every fifty-state table that fills the gap is a law firm's summary copied from another summary. Rather than repeat numbers nobody here has read at the source, this is the law and the office to ask.
| State | Statute | Who to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Ala. Code §§ 8-20A-1 to 8-20A-6 | Alabama Attorney General, Consumer Interest Division |
| Arkansas | New Motor Vehicle Quality Assurance Act, Ark. Code §§ 4-90-401 et seq. | Arkansas Attorney General, Public Protection Department |
| New Mexico | Motor Vehicle Quality Assurance Act, N.M. Stat. §§ 57-16A-1 et seq. | New Mexico Department of Justice, Consumer Affairs |
| North Dakota | N.D. Cent. Code §§ 51-07-16 to 51-07-22 | North Dakota Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division |
What is on record about your car
A lemon law claim is about your vehicle and your repair orders. What other owners have reported about the same year, make and model is separate and public, and it can show whether the failure is a known pattern, whether NHTSA is investigating it, and whether a recall already covers a repair you have been paying for.
This is not legal advice. These pages are a reading of public statutes by somebody who is not a lawyer. A lemon law claim turns on facts a summary cannot see, and every state's page links to the statute and to the agency that decides.
Compiled and maintained by guarledes
Independent developer and analyst