State lemon law
Iowa Lemon Law
When a new vehicle keeps failing, Iowa law can require the manufacturer to replace it or buy it back. These are the numbers the statute actually sets.
3
Repair attempts
20
Days out of service
24
Months covered
24,000
Miles covered
What counts as a lemon in Iowa
Meeting any one of these raises a presumption that the manufacturer has had a reasonable number of attempts. The repairs have to fall inside the first 24 months or 24,000 miles of use, whichever expires first, which iowa calls the lemon law rights period.
- Three attempts have been made to repair the same defect, after which the owner may send written notice and the manufacturer gets a final attempt.
- The vehicle has been out of service for repair of one or more defects for 20 or more cumulative days, which also opens the written notice step.
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 inside the Lemon Law rights period.
What you have to send the manufacturer
The written notification to the manufacturer is the hinge of the Iowa process. Within ten days of receiving it the manufacturer must offer a reasonably accessible repair facility, and once the vehicle is delivered there it has ten days to bring it up to warranty.
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 or a refund, once the final repair attempt has failed.
The deadline
The qualifying repairs have to fall inside the rights period: 24 months or 24,000 miles, whichever comes first.
Where it is decided
A dispute can go to a manufacturer program certified by the state, and the Attorney General publishes the notification form the process starts with.
Worth knowing
- Iowa asks for only 20 days out of service, and they can be for different defects.
- The three attempts do not finish the process. They open the door to a written notice and one final repair attempt, and skipping that step is fatal to the claim.
How Iowa compares
No state on this site asks for fewer than Iowa's 3 repair attempts, and 19 others ask for the same 3. 3 states count fewer days out of service. 15 states stop counting at fewer than 24,000 miles.
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.
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 Defective Motor Vehicles, Iowa Code ch. 322G and from Iowa Attorney General, 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.
- Iowa Code ch. 322G
- Iowa Code § 322G.3 (duties of the manufacturer)
- Motor vehicle defect notification form, Iowa Attorney General
- Iowa Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division
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 Iowa Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division, or to a lawyer in Iowa.
Compiled and maintained by guarledes . Data last checked 2026-08-20.
Independent developer and analyst