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Saturday, October 10, 2015

Is Giving Up Your Right To Sue Fiat Chrysler Worth $200?

Companies that don’t want their customers to sue have a special weapon: they slip mandatory arbitration agreements into new contracts and service agreements, requiring customers to opt out if they would prefer to retain their right to sue. Yet Fiat Chrysler is trying an interesting tactic: they’ll give you a $200 discount if you sign a piece of paper agreeing to arbitration.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even worse/scarier is the release of liability for slaughter house farms. Read it.

Anonymous said...

Sign a purchase contract with a different car company - until they fix that practice.....$200 is nothing - considering what happened to Ford with the Explorer tires - and recently VW diesels.....

Anonymous said...

If you have a VW diesel and aren't happy with it because of the software issue, I'll buy it.

Anonymous said...

They all do it, it is built in. Lemon law arbitration leans more towards the consumer. I went after Chrysler on a lemon thru arbitration and won. Did it myself.

I learned a lot thru the process and you really should educate yourself before buying a vehicle on who has arbitration firms set up and who do not.

One example would be Subaru, who does not have an agreement with any arbitration firm and you would end up having to hire a lemon lawyer to go after them. I have heard that the 1800lemonlaw firm of Kimmel & Silverman PC are the best and cost you nothing win or lose.

I have not figured out what all the media hype about this is, and who it really benefits, because I guarantee you it will not be to the benefit of the consumer. Right now you can either do it your self for free or hire the lemon guys for free. If they change the rules and you have to hire a lawyer, I guarantee you it will not be for free.

There is a lot of mis-information about what scenarios you can and can not arbitrate, such as the key/ignition issue and resulting deaths were able to directly sue. Currently I believe if arbitration fails and it is not favorable or you disagree with the findings, then you can sue. It is only binding to the car maker if you accept the findings.