You bought a van for your business. Or a pickup for your crew. Maybe you run a small fleet of company cars. Now one of them is spending more time at the dealership than on the road, and you’re absorbing the cost in lost productivity, missed jobs, and out-of-pocket repairs.
Most business owners assume California’s lemon law only applies to personal vehicles. It doesn’t. Commercial vehicle lemon law in California is real, and it covers a wider range of business-owned vehicles than most people realize. But it comes with specific requirements that determine whether you qualify — and if you’re running a larger fleet, there are limits you need to know about before you file.
How California Lemon Law Applies to Business Vehicles
The Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, California’s lemon law statute, explicitly extends protections to vehicles purchased or used primarily for business purposes. The coverage isn’t an afterthought. It’s written into the law alongside personal-use protections.
Under Song-Beverly, commercial vehicle lemon law covers any new motor vehicle that:
- Is used or bought primarily for business purposes
- Has a gross vehicle weight (GVW) under 10,000 pounds
- Is registered in California to a business or individual that has five or fewer vehicles total registered in the state
That last point is where most business owners get tripped up. The five-vehicle cap is firm. If your business has six or more vehicles registered in California, Song-Beverly’s commercial vehicle lemon law protections do not apply to your fleet.
The rationale is straightforward: the law is designed to protect small business owners who, like individual consumers, don’t have the resources or leverage to fight back against major manufacturers on their own. Large fleets and commercial operators are expected to handle warranty disputes through their own contracts and commercial remedies.
What the 10,000-Pound Weight Limit Actually Covers
The gross vehicle weight limit of under 10,000 pounds covers more vehicles than you might expect.
Most light-duty commercial vehicles fall comfortably within this range: standard cargo vans (Ford Transit, Ram ProMaster), half-ton and most three-quarter-ton pickup trucks, SUVs used as company vehicles, passenger cars assigned to employees, and smaller panel vans. If you’re running these kinds of vehicles for a small business, commercial vehicle lemon law almost certainly applies.
What’s typically excluded: heavy-duty trucks, box trucks over that threshold, full-size semi-trucks, and large commercial vehicles with a GVW over 10,000 pounds. These fall outside Song-Beverly’s coverage regardless of how many you own.
One nuance worth flagging: courts have ruled that GVW means the vehicle’s actual weight, not its gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR). A truck rated at 10,500 lbs but weighing 9,800 lbs when unloaded may still qualify under commercial vehicle lemon law. If your vehicle is close to the threshold, that distinction matters and is worth discussing with an attorney.
The Murillo Case: What It Means for Business Owners
Murillo v. Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc. (1998) 17 Cal.4th 985 is a California Supreme Court case that arose from a Song-Beverly dispute involving a motorhome, and it addressed the cost recovery rules that apply in commercial vehicle lemon law litigation.
The practical takeaway for business owners: if you bring a commercial vehicle lemon law claim and don’t prevail, the manufacturer may be able to recover costs against you. Under the court’s analysis, Song-Beverly’s fee-shifting provision (which shifts attorney’s fees to the manufacturer when a buyer wins) doesn’t prevent the seller from recovering costs under California’s general cost-recovery statutes if the seller prevails.
This isn’t a reason to avoid filing a strong claim. It’s a reason to make sure your claim is solid before you go forward. Work with an attorney who can assess your repair history honestly and tell you what your case looks like before you’re in court. When your claim is well-documented and the manufacturer has had multiple failed repair attempts, you’re not in the position Murillo was in.
The Same Core Rules Apply: What Your Business Vehicle Needs to Qualify
Commercial vehicle lemon law follows the same core framework as personal lemon law. Your vehicle qualifies as a lemon if the manufacturer or its authorized dealer:
- Failed to repair a substantial defect after a reasonable number of attempts, or
- Couldn’t conform the vehicle to its express warranty after those attempts
Under Song-Beverly and the Tanner Consumer Protection Act (Cal. Civ. Code § 1793.22), the lemon law presumption kicks in when a defect arises during the first 18 months or 18,000 miles. If the same problem has required two or more repair attempts (for a serious safety defect) or four or more attempts (for other substantial issues), the law presumes the manufacturer has had a reasonable chance to fix it.
This timeline matters especially for business vehicles, which often accumulate miles quickly. If your commercial vehicle hit 18,000 miles in eight months, that doesn’t close the window. The 18-month or 18,000-mile window runs on whichever comes first — but the four-year statute of limitations under Song-Beverly still applies from the date the defect was or should have been discovered.
The High-Mileage Problem and How to Work Around It
Here’s where commercial vehicle lemon law gets harder: the mileage offset.
Under Song-Beverly’s buyback formula, the manufacturer deducts a percentage from your refund based on miles driven before the first repair attempt. The formula divides pre-complaint miles by 120,000 and multiplies that fraction by the purchase price.
For a personal vehicle driven 15,000 miles per year, this offset is usually manageable. For a business vehicle that racks up 40,000 or 50,000 miles a year, the offset can be significant. The single most important thing you can do as a commercial vehicle owner is report the defect immediately when it first appears. Every mile you drive after a problem shows up but before you document it increases the manufacturer’s deduction and decreases your lemon law loan payoff or refund.
Document everything. Get repair orders that specifically note the date, the mileage, and what you complained about. If the dealer tells you they didn’t find anything, get that in writing too. That paper trail is what makes a commercial vehicle lemon law claim stand up.
What You Can Recover
If your commercial vehicle qualifies, the remedies available under Song-Beverly are the same as for personal vehicles:
Buyback (refund): The manufacturer repurchases the vehicle and refunds your down payment, monthly payments, registration, taxes, and incidental costs, minus the mileage offset.
Replacement: The manufacturer provides a comparable replacement vehicle, with no mileage offset applied.
Civil penalty: If the manufacturer willfully failed to comply with Song-Beverly, you may be entitled to up to twice your actual damages on top of the standard remedy.
Attorney’s fees: If you prevail, the manufacturer pays your legal fees. This is the fee-shifting provision that makes it financially possible for small business owners to take on major manufacturers without paying attorney’s costs out of pocket.
For small business owners where a defective vehicle means lost contracts, missed deliveries, or idle crews, these recoveries can be significant. We’ve recovered settlements well into six figures for clients whose vehicles were repeatedly failing under warranty. The value of the claim is determined by the purchase price, the repair history, and what the defect cost the business.
What’s Not Covered: Knowing When You’re Outside the Law
Commercial vehicle lemon law has clear limits, and understanding them saves everyone time.
Song-Beverly does not cover your business fleet if:
- Your business has six or more vehicles registered in California
- The vehicle’s GVW exceeds 10,000 pounds
- The vehicle wasn’t purchased with a manufacturer’s new car warranty
- The defect was caused by misuse, abuse, or unauthorized modifications after delivery
If your situation falls outside Song-Beverly, you may still have options under the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act or under the terms of your purchase contract. The California Attorney General’s overview of Song-Beverly warranty rights is a useful primer on where the law’s coverage begins and ends. An attorney can help you identify which pathway makes sense for your specific commercial vehicle lemon law situation.
Don’t Leave It on the Table
Most small business owners who own a defective commercial vehicle assume the lemon law doesn’t apply to them. It often does. The five-vehicle rule and the weight limit are the filters. If you’re on the right side of both, commercial vehicle lemon law gives you the same tools that have helped thousands of individual car buyers recover what they’re owed from manufacturers who couldn’t fix the problem.
You can learn more about how Song-Beverly’s protections work by reading your rights under the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. And if you want to understand what a successful buyback looks like in practice, our post on what counts as a lemon law buyback in California breaks down the full process.
If your commercial vehicle has been back to the dealer multiple times for the same problem and you’re tired of eating the downtime, check if your vehicle qualifies and then get a free case review. The manufacturer pays our fees. You don’t.
Seven Law Group, APC is a California lemon law firm serving clients statewide. The manufacturer pays our fees — not you.