What qualifies as a lemon in Georgia?

The same defect has been subject to repair three or more times inside the rights period and still exists. A serious safety defect, meaning one that is life-threatening or likely to cause bodily injury, has been subject to repair at least once and still exists. The vehicle has been out of service for repair for a total of at least 30 days. These attempts must fall inside two years from delivery or the first 24,000 miles, whichever comes first, which georgia calls the lemon law rights period. (Georgia Lemon Law, O.C.G.A. §§ 10-1-780 to 10-1-798)

State lemon law

Georgia Lemon Law

When a new vehicle keeps failing, Georgia law can require the manufacturer to replace it or buy it back. These are the numbers the statute actually sets.

Repair attempts

If it is a safety defect

Days out of service

Months covered

24,000

Miles covered

What counts as a lemon in Georgia

Meeting any one of these raises a presumption that the manufacturer has had a reasonable number of attempts. The repairs have to fall inside two years from delivery or the first 24,000 miles, whichever comes first, which georgia calls the lemon law rights period.

The same defect has been subject to repair three or more times inside the rights period and still exists.
A serious safety defect, meaning one that is life-threatening or likely to cause bodily injury, has been subject to repair at least once and still exists.
The vehicle has been out of service for repair for a total of at least 30 days.

Failing all of these does not end a claim. The presumption is a shortcut through the evidence, not the whole of the law, and a vehicle that misses it can still be a lemon on ordinary warranty grounds. It does mean the owner has to prove what the presumption would have assumed.

Which vehicles the law reaches

New vehicles bought or leased in Georgia and still inside the rights period. Georgia treats a serious safety defect differently from other defects and gives the manufacturer only one attempt at it.

What you have to send the manufacturer

Once the attempts are used up, the owner must send a final repair opportunity notice and let the manufacturer make one last attempt. Georgia publishes the form for it.

Keep every repair order. The dates a vehicle went in and came out are what the whole test is counted from, and they are the one part of the record the owner controls.

What you get

A replacement vehicle or a refund, decided by a state arbitration panel where the manufacturer does not agree.

The deadline

An arbitration application must be filed within one year of the date the Lemon Law rights period expires.

Where it is decided

Georgia runs a state arbitration panel through the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division, which hears the case if the manufacturer will not resolve it.

Worth knowing

The final repair opportunity is a formal step, not a courtesy: the claim can fail for skipping it.
The clock to file runs from the end of the rights period, not from the last repair, so a defect that appears at 23 months still leaves time.

How Georgia compares

No state on this site asks for fewer than Georgia's 3 repair attempts, and 19 others ask for the same 3. 7 states count fewer days out of service. 15 states stop counting at fewer than 24,000 miles.

Every state's thresholds side by side

Before you file: what is already on record

A lemon law claim is about your car. What other owners have reported about the same year, make and model is separate, and it is public: it can tell you whether the failure is a known pattern, whether NHTSA is investigating it, and whether a recall already covers the repair you have been paying for.

Check your VIN for open recalls Look up your year, make and model

Under investigation 2010 Ford Fusion 2012 Ford Focus 2011 Hyundai Sonata 2013 Ford F-150 2010 Toyota Prius 2011 Ford Fusion

Where this comes from

Read from Georgia Lemon Law, O.C.G.A. §§ 10-1-780 to 10-1-798 and from Georgia Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division, checked on 2026-08-20. Nothing on this page is copied from another summary, and there are a great many of them that disagree with the statutes they describe.

This is not legal advice. It is a reading of a public statute, written by somebody who is not a lawyer and does not know your car, your paperwork or your state's case law. A lemon law claim turns on facts this page cannot see. Take the statute and your repair orders to Georgia Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division, or to a lawyer in Georgia.

Compiled and maintained by guarledes . Data last checked 2026-08-20.
Independent developer and analyst