Florida Lemon Law Repurchase Calculation: Mileage Offset and Worked Example

The Florida lemon law repurchase calculation gives you back the purchase price of the vehicle plus sales tax, title and registration fees, earned finance charges, and reasonable out-of-pocket costs caused by the defect, and then subtracts a mileage-based offset for the use you got out of the car. The offset formula, set in Florida Statutes Section 681.102(19), is the base sale price multiplied by the miles you put on the vehicle, divided by 120,000. Everything else is bookkeeping around those two numbers.¹

What Counts as the Purchase Price

The refund starts with the “purchase price” defined in Section 681.102(18): the cash price of the vehicle, including any trade-in allowance, but excluding debt carried over from a prior transaction. Negative equity you rolled in from a previous loan does not count toward the refund.¹

Trade-ins deserve attention because the number can swing the refund by thousands. The statute uses the net trade-in allowance shown on your purchase contract. If you and the manufacturer cannot agree on that figure, the default is 100 percent of the retail price listed in the NADA Official Used Car Guide (Southeastern Edition) at the time of the trade-in, and the manufacturer has to produce the applicable NADA book.¹

Collateral and Incidental Charges

On top of the purchase price, the manufacturer reimburses your collateral charges. The statute defines these as additional costs wholly incurred because you acquired the vehicle, and lists manufacturer- or dealer-installed items and service charges, earned finance charges (interest you have already paid), sales taxes, and title charges. The language is “include, but are not limited to,” so other acquisition-related fees such as registration costs also qualify.¹

Incidental charges are the reasonable out-of-pocket costs directly caused by the defect.¹ The statute does not list examples, but towing bills, rental car charges while the vehicle sat in the shop, and other alternative transportation costs are the typical items. Two conditions apply: the amount must be reasonable, and the expense must trace back to the nonconformity rather than to unrelated wear or damage. Keep every receipt. Without documentation, these are hard to recover.

The Mileage Offset That Reduces Your Refund

The manufacturer does not refund every dollar you spent. A “reasonable offset for use” is subtracted to account for the miles you drove the car. The formula:

Offset = (Base sale price × Miles attributable to the consumer) ÷ 120,000

Three inputs are easy to get wrong:

Base sale price is the vehicle price shown on your purchase invoice, before taxes, government fees, and dealer fees. If your invoice shows $32,000 for the car but your out-the-door total was $35,400, you use $32,000.
Miles are counted as of the date of a settlement agreement or the arbitration hearing, whichever comes first. Subtract any mileage on the odometer at delivery and any non-consumer miles such as dealer loaner use. This figure is almost always higher than the mileage at your first repair visit.
The divisor is 120,000, which the statute treats as the useful life of a standard vehicle. For recreational vehicles, the divisor is 60,000.¹

A Full Worked Example

Say you bought a sedan with a base sale price of $24,000, and by the date of settlement you have put 20,000 miles on it. The Florida Attorney General’s office uses this exact scenario in its calculation guideline:²

Offset = $24,000 × 20,000 ÷ 120,000 = $4,000

Now assume the full purchase price (with trade-in credit included) was $26,500, you paid $1,855 in sales tax and $450 in title and registration, earned finance charges totaled $900, and towing plus a rental cost you $380. The refund works out this way:

Purchase price: $26,500
Collateral charges: $1,855 + $450 + $900 = $3,205
Incidental charges: $380
Subtotal: $30,085
Minus mileage offset: $30,085 − $4,000 = $26,085

That $26,085 is what the manufacturer owes. If the car is financed, the lender gets paid first out of that total, and you receive the balance as your equity check.

If the Vehicle Is Financed

Refunds are paid to the consumer and the lienholder “as their interests may appear.”³ In practice the manufacturer pays off the outstanding loan balance to the lender, and you get whatever is left. Interest you have already paid comes back to you inside the collateral-charges line. Future interest that would have accrued if you had kept the loan is not reimbursed, and the Attorney General’s guideline notes that late fees and other loan penalties are generally not reimbursed either.² Once the lien is cleared and your check is in hand, the loan dissolves and you turn in the vehicle with a clear title.

If the Vehicle Is Leased

Leases follow a parallel calculation that uses “lease price” instead of purchase price. Lease price aggregates the capitalized cost, the lessor’s earned rent charges through the repurchase date, collateral charges, fees paid to obtain the lease, insurance or other costs the lessor paid for your benefit, and state and local sales taxes the lessor paid at acquisition.¹

The money splits two ways. You receive the “lessee cost,” meaning your deposit plus every rental payment you made. The leasing company receives the lease price minus the lessee cost. No early-termination penalty can be charged against you when a lemon law refund or replacement resolves the claim.³ For the mileage offset on a lease, substitute the agreed-upon value from the lease agreement in place of the base sale price; the 120,000-mile divisor still applies to non-RV vehicles.¹

Can the Manufacturer Give You a Replacement Vehicle Instead?

The manufacturer may offer a replacement vehicle, but you have an unconditional right to choose the cash refund. If you accept a replacement, the manufacturer keeps your reasonable offset for use as payment, and the replacement must be acceptable to you. Either way, the manufacturer has 40 days after a final determination to complete the repurchase or replacement.³

Deadlines That Protect the Refund

The calculation is only useful if your claim is still alive. The lemon law rights period ends 24 months after the vehicle was originally delivered to you.⁴ If the manufacturer does not voluntarily repurchase the vehicle, you can take the claim to the Florida New Motor Vehicle Arbitration Board. The deadline to file is 60 days after the lemon law rights period expires, or 30 days after the final action of a manufacturer-sponsored state-certified program, whichever is later.⁵ Miss that window and the state arbitration path closes, leaving only a civil lawsuit.

Because the mileage input is measured at settlement or hearing rather than at your first complaint, every mile you drive while the dispute drags on reduces your refund. Running the numbers early tells you where you stand and how much a delay costs you.

1
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 681.102 – Definitions
2
My Florida Legal. Lemon Law Remedy Calculation Guideline
3
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 681.104 – Nonconformity of Motor Vehicles
4
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 681.102 – Definitions
5
My Florida Legal. Hearings Before the Florida New Motor Vehicle Arbitration Board