Texas Lemon Law Requirements: Tests, Deadlines, and Remedies

The Texas lemon law requires a manufacturer to repair, replace, or refund a new vehicle that has a defect substantially impairing its use, market value, or safety when the problem can’t be fixed after a reasonable number of attempts. The process runs through the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, and the filing window is tight: your complaint must reach TxDMV within six months of the earliest of three dates — warranty expiration, 24 months after delivery, or 24,000 miles on the odometer.¹

Who and What Is Covered

You qualify as a “consumer” under Texas Occupations Code § 2301.601 if you bought or leased a new motor vehicle in Texas, bought one for use in Texas, or are otherwise entitled to enforce the manufacturer’s warranty.² The vehicle has to come from a licensed Texas dealer or leasing company, and the manufacturer’s original written warranty must still be in effect when you first report the defect. Extended service contracts and aftermarket warranties don’t count.¹

The statute covers self-propelled vehicles designed for public highways, motorcycles of 250cc or more, travel trailers, and the chassis or chassis cab of a motorhome. It excludes anything with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or more, motorcycles under 250cc, farm tractors and similar equipment, golf carts, motorized mobility devices, and power-assisted bicycles.

Two important boundaries. If you bought a used vehicle that still has active factory warranty coverage, you can file for defects that arose during that coverage, but used vehicles are only eligible for a repair order — not a refund or replacement. Those bigger remedies belong to new vehicles alone.¹ Lessees of new vehicles are included; if your lease makes you responsible for repairs and maintenance, you are the one who files.²

What Counts as a Qualifying Defect

The defect must either substantially impair the vehicle’s use or market value or create a serious safety hazard.² A rattle in the dashboard trim or a cosmetic scratch won’t clear that bar. A transmission that slips out of gear, electrical failures while driving, or persistent stalling will.

The statute defines a “serious safety hazard” as a life-threatening malfunction that substantially impedes your ability to control or operate the vehicle, or that creates a substantial risk of fire or explosion.² That label matters because safety hazards clear the lemon law presumption with fewer repair attempts. Defects caused by your own misuse, neglect, or unauthorized modifications are excluded.

How Many Repair Attempts Make It a Lemon

Texas uses three statutory presumptions to decide whether the manufacturer has had a “reasonable number of attempts” to fix the vehicle. You only need to satisfy one.

The Four-Times Test

The same defect persists after four or more repair attempts by the manufacturer or an authorized dealer, with at least two of those attempts occurring during the first 12 months or 12,000 miles after delivery, whichever comes first.² Each visit has to address the same underlying problem for it to count toward the four.

The Serious Safety Hazard Test

When the defect is a serious safety hazard, the threshold drops to two repair attempts. You must give the manufacturer written notice of the hazard and a chance to fix it. If the problem continues after two or more attempts, the manufacturer owes a replacement or refund minus a reasonable use allowance.²

The Thirty-Day Test

If the vehicle has been out of service for warranty repairs for a cumulative 30 days or more during the first 24 months or 24,000 miles (whichever comes first), the presumption is triggered.² The days don’t have to be consecutive, and they can involve different defects. This catches the vehicle that keeps limping back for unrelated problems that never individually hit the four-attempt mark.

The Six-Month Filing Deadline

This is where many otherwise strong claims die. Your complaint must reach TxDMV within six months after the earliest of:

the date the manufacturer’s original warranty expires;
24 months after the delivery date; or
24,000 miles on the odometer (this mileage limit generally does not apply to towable recreational vehicles).

Whichever date comes first starts the six-month clock. Miss it and TxDMV will reject the complaint regardless of how strong the underlying case is.¹ If your warranty runs 36 months but you hit 24,000 miles at month 14, your deadline is six months from that 14-month mark. Count carefully.

What to Document

Weak documentation is the single biggest reason winnable cases fall apart. Start collecting records at the first repair visit, not the fourth.

A repair order from every dealer visit, including visits where the technician could not reproduce or fix the problem.
Repair orders that describe the specific symptom you reported, not just the work the technician performed.
The VIN, current odometer reading, and date of every service visit.
Purchase records showing price, trade-in allowance, taxes, and fees — or the lease agreement.
Copies of any written notice letter to the manufacturer, the certified mail receipt, and anything the manufacturer sent back.

Keep it in chronological order. A hearing examiner wants a clean timeline of what was reported, what was done, and whether the problem came back.

Sending the Final Notice and Filing the Complaint

Before you file, send the manufacturer written notice describing the defect and asking for a final opportunity to repair it. TxDMV publishes a sample letter that identifies the vehicle by year, make, model, and VIN, describes the problem, and requests correction within 30 days.³ Send it certified mail, return receipt requested, so the receipt goes into your file as proof of delivery.

The formal case opens when you submit the Lemon Law Complaint form with a non-refundable $35 filing fee.⁴ You can file electronically through the Motor Vehicle Dealer Online Complaint System on the TxDMV website or by mail to the department.⁵ The form asks for a detailed description of the defect, a chronological repair log, and the financial numbers from the purchase: those figures feed any eventual refund calculation.

What Happens After You File

A TxDMV case advisor reviews the complaint for completeness and eligibility, and the department then tries to resolve the dispute through mediation between you and the manufacturer. Many cases settle at this stage.¹ If mediation fails, the case goes to a contested administrative hearing. After the hearing closes, the department must issue a final order within 60 days.² You are not required to have a lawyer, but the manufacturer will have one, and the documentation standards favor people who do.

What You Can Win

If you prevail, TxDMV can order one of three outcomes:

A refund of the full purchase price, including taxes, title, and license fees, minus a reasonable allowance for your use of the vehicle before the defect appeared.
A replacement with a comparable vehicle — generally the same make, model, and trim — acceptable to you, minus a mileage-based adjustment.
A repair order directing the manufacturer to fix the defect. You may also be reimbursed for warranty-covered repairs you paid for out of pocket.

On top of the primary remedy, the manufacturer owes reasonable incidental costs tied to the loss of use of the vehicle, including towing and rental car expenses. If there is a lienholder, any refund gets split between you and the lienholder in proportion to each party’s interest.²

The Use Allowance Offset

No refund gives you the full sticker price back. Texas deducts a reasonable allowance for use that accounts for the trouble-free miles you drove before the defect first appeared. For standard vehicles, the statute uses a useful life of 120,000 miles. The calculation runs in two tiers:

Unimpaired miles, from delivery to the first reported defect, are divided by 120,000 and multiplied by the purchase price. That full amount is deducted.
Impaired miles, from the first reported defect through the hearing or settlement date, are run through the same formula but multiplied by 50 percent, reflecting that you were driving a defective vehicle during that stretch.

The two numbers are added to produce the total use deduction. Towable recreational vehicles use a days-based model with a useful life of 3,650 days. The practical takeaway: report the defect early. The fewer unimpaired miles on the odometer, the smaller the deduction.

Appealing a Decision

If either side disagrees with the final order, the first step is a motion for rehearing with TxDMV. After that, appeals go to state district court in Travis County.¹ Court review of an administrative decision is generally limited to whether the agency followed proper procedures and whether substantial evidence supported its findings, not a full retrial of the facts.

The Federal Alternative: Magnuson-Moss

The state lemon law is not your only option. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act lets consumers sue manufacturers, distributors, or retailers in court for failing to honor a written or implied warranty.⁶ It differs from the TxDMV process in three useful ways.

It covers used vehicles with active warranties, not just new ones. It includes implied warranties, which Texas dealers cannot disclaim when they also provide a written warranty.⁷ And if you win, the court can order the manufacturer to pay your attorney fees and litigation costs,⁶ which is why many lemon law attorneys take these cases on contingency.

Federal court claims under Magnuson-Moss require at least $50,000 in controversy, which most new vehicle claims satisfy, and the general statute of limitations is four years from when you discover the defect. The federal route involves actual litigation rather than an administrative hearing, so it typically takes longer and runs more complex, but the available damages can be broader. Many consumers pursue both paths: the TxDMV complaint for a faster resolution, then a Magnuson-Moss lawsuit if the administrative outcome falls short.

1
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Texas Lemon Law
2
State of Texas. Texas Occupations Code Chapter 2301 – Sale or Lease of Motor Vehicles
3
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Sample Letter for Written Notification to Manufacturer
4
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Revenue Object 3036 – Motor Vehicle Complaints and Protests
5
Cornell Law Institute. 43 Texas Administrative Code 224.232 – Filing a Complaint
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 2310 – Remedies in Consumer Disputes
7
Federal Trade Commission. Businesspersons Guide to Federal Warranty Law