January, 15, 1991

MRAA Position

MRAA strongly opposes lemon laws and recall laws for recreational boats.

Background

A very small number of disgruntled boat owners have been complaining recently about economic recourse options available to them to resolve their dissatisfaction with production, product, and warranty problems of newly purchased boats. As a result, several states are considering enactment of lemon laws, and the Federal government is considering a recreational boat recall law.

MRAA Viewpoints

The cost in time, money, and inconvenience of litigating disputed boat warranty claims can be staggering. We believe a court solution seldom offers as assured, or even expeditious remedy for consumer complaints. Consumers must get legal advice, and many times lawyers are reluctant to accept these types of cases.

MRAA strongly believes the remedy to disputed boat warranty claims is not in further legal recourse with new laws such as lemon or recall laws, but rather in preventative measures to keep disagreements and misunderstandings at a minimum. Our experience shows that most consumer complaints have been and probably will continue to be resolved by boat dealers working closely with consumers at the dealership level.

Dealers and manufacturers must agree on respective warranty responsibilities, and consumers must become better educated and informed about boat warranties and their rights. Better Dealer-Manufacturer Agreements which clearly address warranty responsibilities of dealers and manufacturers would serve to clarify many of the problems consumers identify as reasons to endorse lemon laws.

Most state lemon laws are modeled after motor vehicle lemon laws which is unreasonable and unworkable in practice, because of the significant differences between manufacture, sale, and use of motor vehicles on land and recreational boats on the water.

MRAA also believes that consumers already have several other mechanisms to resolve consumer complaints. Recourse under implied warranty provisions of state laws and the due process provision of Federal law which allows manufacturers to ask for public hearings to debate alleged safety defects are commonly used mechanisms. The Magnuson-Ferguson Act requires manufacturer warranties of products. These warranties must be clearly written and understood by all parties, including manufacturers, retailers and consumers.

In addition, the Coast Guard monitors boating safety and marine product defects through a manufacturer certification program and the consumer has a consumer protection hotline. According to recent Coast Guard data, fewer than 20 calls per month are received on the Coast Guard Consumer Hotline and even the majority of these calls are not consumer complaints. The Coast Guard prepares a monthly report and works closely with manufacturers to address complaints received on the hotline. Fewer than 5% of all complaints are dealer related.