How do you determine that a car is a lemon?

ok i bought my car 09/05 from a dealership. its a 1998 pontiac grand prix gt and it was $6,200. well since then i've had to put over $3,500 in repairs to it.



-egr valve

-belts

-window motors (both stopped working)

-new wiper motor/relay (also stopped working)

-mass air flow sensor

-new weather stripping stuff by wipers

-struts

-tires

-brakes

-air conditioning

-oil changes, radiator flushs, normal stuff...



also i still have to get the fans fixed b/c whenever i turn my heat on they squeal and its annoying, and when my heats on it smells horrible.



no one else i know has ever put that much $$ into a car in less than 2 years.

i bought it from a good dealership it's not like its from a buy here pay here.

also it had 70,00 mi. when i bought it.How do you determine that a car is a lemon?
the lemon law is that it has to have 5 MAJOR things go wrong with it within 1 year of purchase of a new car. You will have to have proof of this by dealer only repairs to your vehicle. The %26quot;small%26quot; repairs will be under new car warrantee. Since you bought a used car then you are screwed. The old saying of %26quot;caviot emptor%26quot; buyer beware. Just be sure to tell ALL of your friends and family not to buy anything from this dealer, as he probably knew the car was in this bad of condition. His mechanics will look over the vehicle when it was brought in then they will determine how much to fix to keep the car running long enough to resell it. If this a reputable dealer then he might refund some of your money since this car was in bad shape and he knew it.How do you determine that a car is a lemon?
Most of the time a lemon is determined from it having to go into the shop for the same problem 3 times within a certain amount of time, and the problem never being taken care of, but I think the lemon laws are different from state to state.How do you determine that a car is a lemon?
some you win some you lose. cut your losses and get rid of itHow do you determine that a car is a lemon?
It looks like no one did any maintenance on this car while they owned it. In other words, it is a well used car.

The previous owners just put gas in it and that was it....and drive it into the ground. %26quot;Could have been a rental.%26quot;

The dealership ain't about to put money into it if they can sell it. Silicone and turtle wax is enough.

All the things you mentioned are items that wear and would have to be replaced if you owned the car from day one. Except in your case you would have done it piece by piece...over the long haul.

It is a matter of inspecting the car before you buy it - even from a dealer. Used is used=it is up to you to determine %26quot;how used is it%26quot;.

There is no major part here like engine, transmission or rear end.How do you determine that a car is a lemon?
As stated before the LEMON law only applies to newly purchased vehicles, or vehicles that were relatively newly purchased (ie very late model.)



Most of the items you've named are wear items (tires, brakes, struts, etc) though some cars wear faster than others. The window motors are notoriously failure prone in GM vehicles (my brother's Camaro spent 5 minutes rolling up the windows.) Its odd that the MAF went out that soon, but its not unheard of.



If its running fine now I'd say keep driving it, but if it starts to give you problems considering selling it a purchasing something else. Some cars are just money pits. Consider purchasing a Japanese car on your next go round, you will still need to fix stuff but they tend to break with a few more miles on them than the others do.