The dealer keeps "looking at it." The statute is counting.

GEN. BUS. LAW § 198-b

The two counts that matter.

Under General Business Law § 198-b, New York's used car lemon law, a dealer who sold you a covered used car must repair defects in the statutorily covered parts during the warranty period. The refund or replacement remedy becomes available when one of two counts is reached: the same defect has been subject to repair three or more times and still exists, or the car has been out of service by reason of repair for a cumulative total of fifteen or more days during the warranty. The full statute, who is covered, and the warranty tiers are on our used car lemon law hub.

Those counts are the whole game. A dealer who understands them will try to keep you from reaching either one. Your job is to make each repair attempt and each day in the shop a documented fact.

Step one: report the defect in writing, inside the warranty.

The warranty period is short: 90, 60, or 30 days depending on mileage, or the mileage equivalent. The first thing to establish is that the defect appeared and was reported during that window. A phone call to the service department does not prove that. A text or email to the dealer, dated, describing the problem in plain words ("transmission slips between second and third under acceleration, started yesterday at 1,200 miles since purchase") does. Send one the day the problem appears, even if you are bringing the car in that afternoon. If the dealer has a customer portal or a text line, use it and screenshot it.

If the warranty is about to expire and the dealer cannot see you for a week, the written notice is what preserves the claim. The statute extends the warranty for time the car is in for repair, but the defect has to have been reported in time first.

Step two: get a repair order every single time.

Every visit produces a written repair order, or it did not happen. The repair order must show:

• The date and mileage in.
• Your complaint, in your words, not the service writer's softened version. If the order says "customer states noise," ask them to write "customer states transmission slips."
• The diagnosis and the work performed, or "no problem found."
• The date and mileage out.
• Charges, which for a covered defect in warranty should be zero.

Dealers who do not want a paper trail will offer to "take a quick look" without opening a ticket, or will return the car with a verbal "we adjusted it." Decline. Say you need the repair order for your records. If the dealer refuses to write one, send an email that day: "I brought the car in today at 9 a.m. for the transmission slipping you have now looked at twice. You returned it at 4 p.m. and told me you reset the computer. You did not provide a repair order. Please send one." That email is now the repair order.

Step three: keep the defect described consistently.

The three-attempt count requires the same defect. A dealer can break the count by describing the visits as different problems: "shift concern," then "check engine light," then "drivability." Describe the problem the same way each time, in your own words, and tie it back: "same transmission slipping I reported on March 3 and March 19." If the dealer's diagnosis changes, that is fine; the defect is what you experience, not what they call it.

Step four: count the days.

The fifteen-day count is cumulative and it often gets you there before the third attempt. A car that sits a week for parts twice is fourteen days. Keep a simple log: date dropped, date picked up, days. The repair orders should match. If the dealer gave you a loaner, the days still count; the statute looks at whether your car was out of service for repair.

Step five: the "no problem found" visit.

A visit where the dealer keeps the car, cannot reproduce the problem, and returns it unchanged is still a repair attempt if the defect was presented for repair and continues to exist. Document the recurrence immediately after: a video of the problem, a note of the date and mileage, a text to the dealer the same day. Three "no problem found" visits followed by three videos of the problem is a completed count.

Step six: written notice that the threshold is met.

When you cross either line, stop bringing the car in for the same repair. Send the dealer a written notice that the defect has been subject to three repair attempts (or that the car has been out of service fifteen days), that the defect persists, and that you are demanding the statutory remedy. Some dealers will offer a final attempt at this point. You are not required to give it, though a buyer who wants the car fixed rather than refunded sometimes does, in writing, without waiving the count.

If the dealer has simply refused to repair at all, telling you the defect is not covered, that the warranty does not apply, or that the car was sold as is, the refusal itself is the breach. Document the refusal in writing and move to the demand.

What a demand letter does here.

The attorney letter is the formal version of step six, and it is built to be read by the dealer's principal, not the service writer. It states the purchase date, price, and mileage; identifies the applicable statutory warranty period; lists each repair attempt by date with the repair order attached; totals the days out of service; states that the statutory threshold has been met; and demands the remedy: a refund of the purchase price plus the taxes and fees the statute includes, less a reasonable allowance for use, with a number, or a comparable replacement if you prefer one. It sets a deadline and states that the Attorney General's arbitration program or a court action follows, along with a DMV complaint against the dealer's license.

Where the dealer refused repairs on the ground that the car was sold as is, the letter addresses that directly: the statute requires the warranty and the disclaimer is ineffective. Where the dealer claims the defect is not a covered part, the letter says which listed component it is. The leverage is that everything in the letter is what an arbitrator would see, and dealers who have been through the program know what the award will be. Our flat-fee demand letters page explains how we handle it.

A worked example.

A Westchester buyer purchases a $9,800 SUV with 84,000 miles, which carries a 30-day, 1,000-mile statutory warranty. On day six the brakes pull hard to the left. She emails the dealer that day. Visit one: pads replaced, two days. Day fifteen, same pull; visit two: caliper replaced, four days. Day twenty-six, same pull; visit three: "road tested, operates as designed," three days. That is three attempts at the same covered defect (brakes are on the statutory list) and nine days out of service, all inside a warranty that has been extended by those nine days.

Her letter attaches three repair orders and her three emails, cites § 198-b, states the count, and demands a refund of $9,800 plus tax and fees, less a mileage allowance for the roughly 700 miles she drove. The dealer's owner, reading it, has two choices: buy the car back or explain to an arbitrator why three brake repairs that did not fix the brakes were good enough. Most choose the buyback.

When the sequence does not get you there.

If the defect first appeared after the warranty expired, the statute does not help, though a dealer's longer written warranty might. If the problem is not a covered part, you are on the dealer's warranty and ordinary contract law, and the letter is a different letter. If the dealer has closed or has no assets, arbitration and judgments are only as good as collection. And if the dealer is simply slow but is genuinely fixing the car, consider whether a refund is what you want; some buyers prefer a working car to a fight. The choice between the arbitration program and court is on used car lemon law arbitration, and the as-is question on bought a used car as is. Smaller claims fit the small claims courts; the comparison with a letter is on demand letter vs. small claims.